Hope's Change
by God's Demonic Messenger
Summary: Private Jenners, Corporal Gomez, and the rest of the 5th Battalion, Atlas Army are joined by a legendary platoon, led by a woman in stark white. Things are about to get interesting, but no one, not even the famous Ice Queen of Atlas, could anticipate how much the encounter would change all involved. STRONG LANGUAGE BUT NO OTHER MATURE CONTENT
1. Author's Note

_Author's Note:_

 _This story is the third part of a trilogy, the individual elements being thus:_

 _1) Hope in a Handbasket_

 _2) Hope's Children_

 _3) Hope's Change_

 _I wrote this and the other stories in this defacto trilogy during the Christmas break of 2015, AKA the holiday break of Season 3 of RWBY. Therefore, in these stories, the canon is what it was before the events of the second half of Season 3._

 _If it happened at any point in that second half, it didn't happen in the canon of these stories._

 _I hope you enjoy them, and as always, Read and Review_


	2. Legends from the North

"Hey Gomez," Private Richard Jenners whispered through the open barrack flap. "Guess who's coming for dinner."

"Spit it out, Dick," Lance Corporal Caroline Gomez said in return from her bunk by the door, never looking up from the collection of gun parts on her bed.

"The Winter Contingent!"

"What?!" said every soldier in the makeshift tent they'd been ordered to call a barrack.

"No shit?" Gomez said. "You better not be lying to me, Dick, or I'll have your namesake ripped off by Private Jacobs and turned into a pipe bomb."

"I'm not fooling, Corporal, honest," Jenners said hurriedly, glancing back at the great mass of blood and flesh the LT had insisted they call Private Jacobs. "I heard it through the tent wall of the communications center. They're really coming."

"Holy shit," Gomez said.

The rest of the troops seemed to interpret this interruption as a license to gossip.

"I heard they're so badass, the Grimm up and leave when they show up," one green private said.

"That's bullshit, private. The Grimm don't leave in anything but a corpse wagon," a more seasoned one responded.

"Did you hear about the time they single-handedly defended a military base?"

"Are you kidding? Of course! A buddy of mine told me they tore through the Grimm like it was just another day at the office. The 8th Battalion could barely find a clear patcha ground to stand on when they came back to the base."

"I heard they evacuated a bunch of diplomats from Carlin City. You know, the one the Grimm overran?"

"Bull. How's someone supposed to pull that off, huh? Get civilians out of a Grimm controlled city? C'mon."

"It's true! My buddy's cousin was on the base where the Winter Contingent evac'd 'em to."

"Uh huh. Next you're going to tell me your mother's brother's cousin's least-favorite aunt told you children really do fall from the sky."

"You sayin' you don't believe me?"

"Of course I don't! Only an idiot would believe that tripe."

You saying I'm an idiot?"

"Depends on if you believe that tripe."

"You wanna go, Stevens? I'll show you who's an idio-"

" _Soldiers!_ " A loud, harsh voice barked.

The broad mix of men and women jerked erect and faced the door. "Sir!"

A stern-faced, short-trimmed woman with burn scars all across the left side of her face stood in the doorway.

"I don't care what you think you've heard," she said, "you will _not_ rant on like a bunch of gossiping school children!"

"But Sarge-"

"No. Buts," she glared around the room. "There will be no gossiping on this base!"

She paused. The soldiers collectively held their breath. Then the sergeant smiled, "Here in the Corps, we rumor, not gossip."

The soldiers, one and all, let out a heavy sigh.

"Is it true, Sarge?" Gomez finally asked. "Are they really coming?"

"I can't confirm or deny that," Sergeant Gloria Frankel said, which everyone present took to mean an emphatic _yes._

"The Lt. has ordered the platoon to tidy up a bit," she paused as a groan passed through the barrack, "She also said that there may or may not be an inspection sometime in the next twenty-four hours."

"Confirmation frikkin' received, then," Gomez said, shaking her head.

"Get to it, people," Sergeant Frankel said. Then she turned around and left, leaving those abandoned to ponder their fate.

oooooo

"Gomez! Gomez, they're coming _now!_ "

Gomez rushed through reassembling her rifle, probably forgetting a spring or two in the process, then jumped up off her bottom bunk to follow Dick into the yard.

Behind her, the rest of the platoon scrambled to follow.

Gomez jogged after Dick, looking around for an arriving airship. It had been nearly two days since they'd heard the Winter Contingent was coming and yet it seemed like the rest of the base had had the same reaction as hers.

And, like her platoon's, the officers and NCOs all across the base weren't bothering to stop them.

Then a sound in the distance caused an excited ripple to sweep the crowd. Gomez, Dick, and everyone else instantly recognized the sound of an approaching airship.

Gomez could just see the Battalion Commander, Lt. Colonel Hollin, stride toward their makeshift landing pad. It was nothing more than half-assed packed dirt, but it worked. Mostly.

Gomez waited, tense. Beside her, Dick was practically dancing. The Winter Contingent had swept its way through every major battlefield the Atlas military had deployed to. It had taken part in some of the military's most important successes; things that were hard enough to come by in this war for survival.

Not only would she be sharing a base with a platoon that had risen to legendary status almost overnight, she'd actually get to _serve_ with what she'd heard described as the greatest fighting force the Atlas Military had ever produced.

They weren't out of her league; they were on an entirely different planet than her and the rest of the 5th Battalion.

The sound of an airship rapidly grew louder, till Gomez could see the white speck approach. It grew larger and larger, and inch by frikkin' inch, the ship moved through the sky and over the landing pad.

It lowered itself precisely onto the packed dirt, not fast or slow, not left or right of center, but exactly where the pilot wanted to put it. Gomez heard a few support pilots nearby murmuring about that.

Lt. Colonel Hollin moved toward the airship as it methodically powered down its engines. He stopped and waited. But only after the pilot had cycled through all the flaps, rotated the engines until they were upright, and folded in the wings did the passenger bay door crack its seal.

Gomez, Dick, and the rest of the crowd grew quiet. The door slid aside, revealing a tall, straight-backed woman dressed in a white coat with a blue lining, hair tied back tight into a bun, and a slim shining sword at her belt.

"That's gotta be Major Winter Schnee," Dick whispered at her. "I heard she got promoted after the last guy got taken out by a nevermore."

"I know who she is, Dick," Gomez hissed back. From the sound of it, the rest of the crowd was having a similar discussion.

Major Schnee stepped down from the four foot high deck so casually it looked like she was just taking a step down some stairs.

She moved forward toward Lt. Colonel Hollin while behind her, her troops stepped down with the same nonchalance, using their back leg to support their entire weight while their front one reached out to touch the ground.

The first of them to touch dirt reached back and took several crates from their comrades, while the Major reached the Colonel and saluted.

Technically, Hollin was a Lt. Colonel, one step below a Colonel. But in basic they'd told her that when a Lt. Colonel was around without a full-bird Colonel nearby, you called them 'Colonel.' It was more respectful, they'd said.

They'd also said that soldiers from different branches didn't _have_ to salute to an officer from another, but apparently Major Schnee of the Special Forces considered it more proper to salute Colonel Hollin of the Army.

Whatever you called him and whatever branch he was in, he stood in front of Major Schnee for a good few minutes, talking. Whatever they were talking about, it looked like the Colonel was a bit intimidated by Major Schnee. At least, that's what it looked like from her place in the crowd, so it could have been her imagination.

Before the two of them had even finished talking, the rest of the Winter Contingent had unloaded all of the crates and their kitbags and then lined up at parade rest, legs shoulder-width apart and hands behind their backs in three rows of eight soldiers.

Gomez was so focused on the two distant officers ending their conversation that, when Sergeant Frankel spoke, she jumped practically out of her boots.

"Third Platoon, form up!" the gruff woman shouted. Two dozen heads turned her way as she smiled. It wasn't a congrats-on-your-commendation smile. " _We_ are on delivery detail."

Gomez had never moved so fast.

oooooo

Jenners piloted the hovertruck from the landing pad to the barrack behind the 3rd Platoon's. Every company had, on average, four platoons, and these platoons' barracks were arranged in a 2x2 formation. However, E Company only had three platoons so one of these barracks was empty.

The back of the truck held most of the Winter Contingent's gear, though the soldiers riding behind and beside him had hung onto their weapons, resting the high-powered rifles against their shoulders, barrels pointing up.

"Where's the mess hall?" the hard-looking woman next to him asked as he pulled the truck around the end of the line of barracks. Her head had a deep scar across the scalp, and she'd sheared the pale hair on the wide side of it, giving her an almost approachable look. Almost.

"The, uh, the mess hall?" Jenners said. "It's… it's on the far end of the barracks. We, uh, run the meal gauntlet in shifts, so they, uh-"

"We know about the gauntlet," the soldier behind him said. His voice wobbled strangely. Jenners wondered if the slash that had put that scar across his throat had something to do with it. "Evidently we got last shift."

"Rough luck," Jenners said. "I bet my platoon would be willing to trade-"

The SpecFor soldiers spontaneously laughed. The woman next to him glanced at him, oblivious to the shiver the look caused, and said, "Last shift is better than none, private. It doesn't matter to us when we eat; we'll be getting three squares a day."

"Right," Jenners whispered, feeling more than a little self-conscious about all the complaining he'd done. "Yeah. Well," he started to slow the hovertruck, "this is your barrack, designation E-4. That's E Company, 4th Platoon. We don't really have-"

The woman next to him pushed open the door before the truck had fully stopped, slinging her rifle over her shoulder as she stepped out onto the moving ground. The rest of the soldiers followed suit.

"Thank you, private," the woman said. "We'll handle our gear."

"Uh, yes, ma'am," he replied, feeling distinctly unwelcome. As his passengers quickly and efficiently unloaded the back of the truck, the rest of the short convoy piling up behind him, he wondered if any of the others felt the same.

oooooo

"They're scary," Dick whispered. Barrack E-4's flimsy tent wall was twenty feet away, but for whatever reason he still whispered.

"I know, right?" Gomez replied. Several of the other members of 3rd Platoon had formed a ring in the middle of the barrack. "Every time one of them looks at me I feel like an ant to their boot."

"That's the confidence, private," Sergeant Frankel said from her bunk by the door. "A boot knows it can crush an ant so it doesn't need to prove it. Tends to give the ant the shivers."

"Still, Sarge," another corporal said, "They don't have to be so damn rude about it."

"That would be the Special Forces part of it," Frankel shot back.

"What's that mean?" Gomez demanded.

"Third Platoon has access to need-to-know Restricted Intel," Frankel said. "And that's if you're a full corporal or higher. I'd be willing to bet not a single soldier in the Winter Contingent has less than a need-to-know Secret Clearance, and I bet you the officers have a clean Top Secret one. Live your career with _that_ bit in your teeth, you probably learn to talk as little as possible."

The sergeant snorted, "Hell, if your whole career is Secret, and your life is your career, what's there to talk about with grunts like us anyway?"

Gomez looked around at the other soldiers. They all seemed to have the same face on. "Fair enough, I guess."

oooooo

"Hey Corporal," Dick said loudly, peeking his head through the barrack door.

" _What?_ " Gomez growled.

"Guess who's on the firing range?" Dick said, grinning.

Gomez jumped wordlessly up off her bed and rushed to the door. Half the platoon followed her.

"You see the training course they set up yet?" Dick said, jogging ahead of the platoon.

"No, what about it?" Gomez said, straightening her shirt as she ran.

"It's a live fire obstacle course," a private behind her said.

"You're shitting me," Gomez said, glancing back as she ran.

"Nope," Dick said ahead of her.

"Why does _nobody_ keep me in the loop?" Gomez snarled.

"'Cause I have to piss you off before you'll pay attention," Dick said. "That's a bit of a turn off, Corporal."

Gomez couldn't think of anything to say to that that wouldn't prove his point, so she stayed silent until they reached the officer's observation ridge. It was a short ridge of extra dirt about four feet higher than the firing line in front of it; just enough extra height to watch the whole line practicing.

It was packed with other platoons that had had the same idea.

Below them, the twenty-four members of the Winter Contingent had lined up with an arsenal of weapons. Some were busy practicing with their rifles, others were handling automatic shotguns, and still others were using launchers with dummy rounds. All of them ignored the audience.

Way off to the right on the unfinished section of the range was a huge plywood maze, which Gomez assumed was the live-fire course Dick mentioned.

Third Platoon had its sharpshooters: Matsudo, Ali, and Gorsky were the best shots by miles. But the longer Gomez watched some of the Winter Contingent shoot, the more she started to believe they could actually _shoot_ for miles _and_ hit their targets.

Not a shot outside the ten-ring. Not a single damn shot. Eventually they started shooting at rocks further back instead of the metal targets the range masters had set up, probably for the challenge.

Probably hit them in the ten-ring too. Hell, they probably _created_ a ten-ring.

"Move," a woman's hard voice suddenly said behind her. It didn't wait for Gomez to respond before the hand of the body it belonged to pushed her aside.

Gomez was about to let the owner of the voice hear the pissed-off side of her tongue when she recognized the woman in white. She scrambled to get out of the way, as did most of the other nearby onlookers.

The woman stared down at her soldiers and slowly began to scowl. She seemed about to snarl something when one of the Contingent's sergeants started barking orders and shouting critiques. Apparently, some of them were shooting high, or low, or not far enough, or too close, all of which was news to Gomez.

Surreptitiously, Gomez took a glance up at Major Schnee every few seconds. She just scowled down at her troops, like they weren't good enough for her standards. Like all that world-class precision just flat-out wasn't enough.

As much as Gomez had fantasized about joining the Winter Contingent, at that moment she decided she'd rather muster out than serve under an officer like that.

Eventually, the white-clad woman turned and left without saying a word of praise to her soldiers, and Gomez shared a look with Dick and the others.

"What a peach," one private said under her breath.

"No idea what that means, but you said it, sister," Dick replied.

"No wonder the whole platoon's so damn rude," Gomez said. "If that's their CO, what else are they going to be?"

"Well, in fairness, Corporal," Dick said after a moment, "None of them'll talk to us, and it's not like two minutes is enough time to figure _any_ officer out, let alone _the_ MajorWinter Schnee."

"He does have a point," another private said. "I guess."

"Look, they're moving on to the live-fire course!" someone said from further down.

For Gomez and the others, the idea of watching the Winter Contingent in action, even if it was simulated action, was a sufficient distraction from the discussion of Major Winter Schnee's skill, or lack thereof, as an officer.

oooooo

"Did you see that corporal backflip over that wall?" a private asked his bunkmate back in the barrack.

"Course! You see the part where she took out the target on the way back down?" the other private answered.

"Damn those guys are good!"

The rest of the barrack was similarly engaged in excited discussion. Images of the Winter Contingent flipping, rolling, and leaping through that live-fire course without missing a shot sped through her mind, and she realized the romance of the thing was back, whatever that Major Schnee was like.

She could just picture it; dancing through a battlefield like a one-woman battalion. Damn if she didn't regret joining the Army right then.

"Lights out, people!" Sergeant Frankel shouted to general grumbling. "If a single one of you lot aren't up and ready for PT at 0530 tomorrow morning, I'll make sure you're _all_ put on cleanup detail for the next _week_."

"Aww, c'mon Sarge!" Dick said. "PT at _0530_? That's not even the crack of dawn!"

"Clock's ticking, private," Frankel replied, smiling a feral smile. "You're burning sleep time."

Dick settled back into his bunk with a grumble. Below him, Gomez rolled over and pulled the covers up.

An hour later, she still hadn't fallen asleep. She wondered if anyone had. She couldn't get the images out of her head; those soldiers had just been _so damn good._

She tried to force her eyes to stay closed, but they just plain wouldn't. It was like her sleep-while-you-can battlefield training had decided to go on R&R.

It was during one of these frustrating minutes that she heard voices approaching the barrack. It sounded like a man and a woman.

The voices got closer and she started to make out what they were saying.

"A and D squads need to tighten up their coordination," the woman said coldly. "I saw at least three places they duplicated effort."

"I saw the same, ma'am," the man replied. "I'll be speaking to sergeants Henkel and Petrov about that first thing tomorrow."

Bitchy attitude, overbearing perfectionism? That was Major Schnee and her lieutenant, Gomez realized. She held her breath, waiting for more.

"Good," Major Schnee said as the voices grew louder.

"Have _you_ practiced yet, ma'am?" the lieutenant asked. Gomez couldn't believe it; that's the sort of question that an officer like Major Schnee would bump you down a rank for.

She was equally surprised by the response, especially the tone of it. "No, I haven't," Major Schnee replied calmly. "Specialists are really not meant to command platoons; practice for one is wholly different from practice for the other."

"I understand," the lieutenant replied. Then, after a moment, "We could live-fire for you. At least until they get here."

Gomez had no idea what that meant. First, what the hell did 'live-fire for you' mean? Second, who the hell were 'they?'

Major Schnee was quiet so long, they were almost to Barrack E-4 when she replied. "Good idea, Lt. Lang. Set it up for 0800 tomorrow. I'll need to commandeer the firing range for that every day until they arrive."

"Yes ma'am," the Lt. said. "The range masters won't be happy about it." It was said more as a statement of fact than a criticism.

"Tough," Major Schnee said, her voice traveling away from the far side of barrack E-4.

Gomez barely got up in time for PT the next morning.


	3. Legends from Afar

"0800 you said?" Dick asked loudly, rinsing off the last of the soap coating his body.

"I didn't frikking stutter, Dick," Gomez growled, lacing up her boots on a shower bench. "0800, on the firing range, Major Schnee is going to 'practice,' whatever the hell that me-eeaaans…"

Her jaw cracked in another massive yawn.

"What time is it now?" Dick's voice asked from behind a towel.

"0732," Gomez replied, wiping away tears and tucking her shirt loosely into her pants. "Better hurry."

"Crud," Dick said as Gomez walked out of the showers into the open air.

She walked over to the firing range, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever they were setting up. Instead, there was a tall, thick plywood wall in front of the firing line. They'd even set it up to go around both sides of the range, boxing it all into one huge square of bullet-strewn dirt.

Scrambling forward, pushing aside onlookers that didn't really understand what was on the other side, she scrambled to find a place to peek through. But most of the seams were too small, and the clock was ticking.

If she were betting on it, Gomez would put her money on Major Schnee being the religiously punctual type.

But with two minutes left and still no decent view, she was starting to get really annoyed. Then, "Corporal! Over here!"

Gomez' head snapped toward the voice and she practically sprinted toward it. "I take back… maybe a quarter of the shit I've said about you Dick," she pulled up beside him and looked through the gap in plywood he'd found, "you're a damn patriot."

"Forward progress, I guess," Dick said. "Start calling me Jenners and we'll really be talking."

"Not a chance," Gomez said, looking through the gap. The whole platoon had their weapons out, loosely shouldered and pointing at the ground. They formed a rough semi-circle, and, at the center, stood Major Schnee, her sword drawn.

"On your order, Lt. Lang," she said, glaring around at her soldiers.

"That's a firing squad," Dick whispered, confused. "If, you know, the firing squad were curved, like a circle or one of those oval things."

"Shut up, Dick," Gomez said, looking intently at the formation. "What are they—"

The grizzled Lt. Lang opened fire at the Major, and just from the sound of it Gomez knew that he was using frikking live rounds.

"Holy shit!" Dick shouted. All the idly curious soldiers milling around the large plywood construction immediately ran forward, trying to find what Dick already had.

The first shot was followed by 23 others, then a hundred more. They were actually trying to _kill_ their CO!

"Crud, do you see that, corporal?" Dick said, sneaking a finger through the gap to point ineffectually. "She's dodging them! She's dodging the bullets!"

Gomez was about to slap the idiot when she saw that, unfortunately, he was right. Major Schnee was dashing around, making her troops follow her with their sights, staying enough ahead of their reflexes to avoid getting hit.

Then they switched to fully automatic fire. That was when Gomez started to understand why they were called the _Winter_ Contingent.

The Major cast a bunch of symbols in the air that caught several volleys of bullets, then, still avoiding incoming rounds, she shot several...things, out of her sword that froze some of her troops in place by their feet.

By some unspoken rule, the rooted soldiers shouldered their rifles. With the now absent bullets from their guns no longer filling up the firing lanes, Lt. Lang and the others started moving.

They jumped over the attacks coming from their commanding officer. Rolling and firing, running distraction while others got closer, they tried everything they could to pin her down, all the while still firing real, actual, _live_ rounds at her.

But she wouldn't go down. In fact, in the five or so minutes it took for the platoon to go from a twenty-four-person firing squad to a ten person one, Gomez hadn't seen her get hit once. Her troops had to have shoved 600 rounds her way, but the symbols and the dodging just negated it all.

One by one, Major Schnee chipped away at the last ten. Some really didn't go down easily, working in tandem, drawing her fire whenever she got close to taking out another. But she whittled them down anyway.

Eventually, it was just her and Lt. Lang. He put up a good last stand, ducking and weaving around her attacks, getting in several of his own whenever she repositioned. It seemed like he knew the way she fought better than the others. Or maybe he was just plain better, Gomez couldn't tell.

But he couldn't hold out for all that long. Sooner than a sergeant blaring the call-to-duty horn, Winter cast one of her solid symbol things behind him, then backed him into it with a feint, then finished him off with an icy shot to his feet.

 _She may be a bitchy perfectionist,_ Gomez thought, looking at the twenty-four special ops badasses frozen to the ground and the hundreds of empty cartridges strewn across the firing range, _but frik if she couldn't fight._

The Major slashed her sword across the firing range, casting a bunch of hot red shots at her soldiers' feet. The ice there melted and they all shook their feet to get rid of the water.

Her body language confused the hell out of Gomez. She'd just dispatched two dozen badasses, but she actually looked _disappointed._ And, based on Lang's reaction, or what Gomez could see of it, it didn't seem like she was disappointed with him.

"What is this?" a stern voice sounded over crowd. Gomez moved away from the crack a fraction of a second faster than Dick, because that was not the sound of a junior officer.

"Captain, Staff Sergeant, what is this monstrosity doing on my firing range?" Colonel Hollin demanded.

His question was answered as one of the plywood panels was lifted out of the way from the inside. Major Schnee walked calmly through the gap, Lt. Lang right behind her.

"B Squad needs to improve their accuracy. If they're rating is higher than 80 percent when we go over the recordings I will be _very_ surprised."

"I'll make sure Sergeant Petrov is made aware," Lt. Lang replied. Gomez didn't understand; everyone had _missed;_ how could B Squad's accuracy be 80 percent?

Major Schnee's tone changed. "I missed the chance to take you out when Hans stumbled," she said in a detached voice. "That cost me several seconds."

"Agreed, ma'am," Lt. Lang replied in the same tone. "He caught you off guard, chance or not."

"I need to be adapting better," Major Schnee said in a slightly more angry tone. "This lack of practice is affecting my performance."

Major Schnee scowled but didn't continue. Gomez tried not to be in her line of sight, but Dick wouldn't get between her and the Major no matter how much Gomez shoved him.

"Major Schnee, what is going on here?" Colonel demanded.

"Training exercise, sir," Major Schnee replied impatiently.

"You erected a plywood wall around my entire firing range for a training exercise _without my approval?"_ He demanded.

Major Schnee tilted her head. "Yes."

Gomez glanced at Dick. He had the same look of disbelief on his face. The Colonel almost looked intimidated for a second. Then, "Any modification, _any_ alteration to base infrastructure goes through _me,_ Major."

Major Schnee stiffened into attention. "I apologize, sir," The Colonel seemed to relax, "Evidently my platoon and I have spent so much time on bases with greater versatility and more adaptive structures that I simply didn't think to ask."

The Colonel stiffened like a board. Gomez had to admit, that had been one _hell_ of a jab.

"Unfortunately, I will continue to need a similar amount of time and space to train," Major Schnee continued, "At least until the Vale reinforcements arrive in a few days. Unlike _your_ soldiers, _my_ training requirements cannot be satisfied by a simple firing range. They, on the other hand, should be able to provide more robust practice."

Gomez was having a hard time balancing her growing respect for Major Schnee's razor-sharp tongue with her existing hatred of the woman's leadership style.

The Colonel was starting to boil over, Gomez could tell. But he wasn't shouting; apparently the Winter Contingent was as legendary among the officers as it was among the enlisted. He wasn't about to test those cold waters.

"Your range masters can return the range to its normal state now," she said, walking toward the row of large conference tents. "I won't be needing it again until tomorrow. For the next hour my platoon and I will be conducting a short debrief and then reviewing mission details." She stopped just short of the Colonel and saluted. It was a pristine salute, the kind Gomez' drill sergeant couldn't have pulled off. Not a fingernail out of place, and more patronizing than a pat on the head.

"With your permission, sir?"

The Colonel scowled. It was the sort of scowl that would light a fire under Gomez' feet and keep it there for a week, but the Major stared it down, matching furious heat with brutal cold.

Cold won.

"Granted, _Major_ ," Colonel Hollin said through gritted teeth. He returned her salute, then she and her platoon continued toward the tents.

The Colonel glared around at all the soldiers present, and Gomez understood his orders perfectly.

She and Dick fled as quickly as possible.

oooooo

"Who do you think ' _they_ ' are?" Dick asked from his top bunk back at the barrack.

"I've heard Major Schnee talk about them before," Gomez said from her bottom bunk. "Other than that, no idea."

"Think it's a couple more specialists?" Dick said. "She made it sound like she'd be training with them."

"Unless it means we're moving out when they arrive," Gomez said darkly. "It'd be just like officers to keep us in the dark until the last possible second."

"Heh, yeah," Dick replied. "Man though, they are complete bad-As. You see 'em when she called B Squad out?"

"No," Gomez said. "Why, were they pissed?"

"No, that's the thing," Dick replied. "None of them even reacted. If I got called out for that kinda thing, I'd be furious. I may not complain to the officer about it but I'd definitely show _something."_

"Hey, we've known it all along, Dick. The Winter Contingent are hyper-disciplined badasses. No talking, no fraternizing; hell, I haven't seen a single one actually make a joke."

"Yeah," Dick replied. "Kinda makes you wonder if they're really people, y'know? Like, we've got androids all over the place, right? It'd be hard to tell."

"God, I hope not," Gomez said.

"Lights out in ten!" Sergeant Frankel shouted from the open door. "PT is at 0600 tomorrow and you better not miss it!"

A groan went through the barrack. Surprisingly, Gomez found it a lot easier to go to sleep that night.

oooooo

Several days of slowly getting used to the sound of wild gunfire every morning went by and the luster of having the Winter Contingent in their base had worn off for Gomez and the rest of E Company.

They got up, did their PT, got breakfast, listened to Major Schnee get shot at for an hour, then had lunch and did their assignments for the day.

Nobody really saw much from the WC; other than the daily gunfire and some time on the actual range. The only time they left their small corner of the base was for chow.

Gomez' natural boredom had even started to return. She hated her natural boredom; it was why she was still a corporal.

It was for this very reason that a shout from the WC's barrack hit her like a lightning bolt. She sprang up, barely missing Dick's feet as he swung over the side of his top bunk, and dashed out the door.

From off toward the landing pad she heard shouting, and not the good kind. It was the sort of shouting someone did before they fired a warning shot.

When she looked around, she saw the _whole_ Winter Contingent burst out of their barrack, led by Lt. Lang, all of them with their weapons in hand, all of them fitting together into formation like they were frikking magnets.

 _Well,_ Gomez thought, _Not a whole lot of safer places to be than behind the WC._ She motioned to Dick to follow, then jogged after them.

Well, they jogged for about two seconds until they realized that the WC definitely wasn't jogging. Then they started sprinting. The shouting from ahead kept getting louder, and not just because they were getting closer very quickly.

"You are in a RESTRICTED landing area!" Gomez heard the sergeant in charge of the landing pads bellow. "Disengage IMMEDIATELY or you _will_ be FIRED UPON!"

Several soldiers had directed turret-mounted rockets at the small airship on the landing pad. There were a couple symbols painted on the side by the cockpit, like those old aircraft kill markers from the movies, but Gomez couldn't make out what they were.

"I repeat: DISENGAGE IMMEDIATELY OR YOU WILL-"

"We'll take it from here, sergeant," Lt. Lang said gravely, loud enough to interrupt. The sergeant looked at him, shocked.

"Uh, yes sir," he said, not completely lowering his weapon.

Then Lt. Lang raised his voice and shouted, "Platoon, aim for effect."

The whole Winter Contingent fanned out and aimed their weapons. Gomez tried to follow their line of sight; theyseemed to be aiming at the engines and a couple other weak spots. _Those'd cause an effect, alright._

"Pilot, you will lower your blast shield immediately," Lt. Lang shouted. The sergeant looked up at him like he was crazy, and Gomez didn't blame him. What the hell did it matter what the bastard looked like, he wasn't supposed to be there!

" _I have a very embarrassing skin condition, Sergeant,"_ the pilot said. " _I'd really rather not."_

"It's _'Lieutenant,'_ " Lt. Lang growled. "Lower the blast shield, or I will put a bullet in that pretty little face of yours."

A dramatic gasp, " _That's_ low, _Sergeant. You'd really threaten_ Sebastian? _I thought you were above such vulgarity!"_

Gomez looked around. She took a moment to feel relieved that hers was not the only jaw hanging looser than Dick's mom on the first of the month.

"Do it," Lt. Lang shouted. "Now!" The rest of the Winter Contingent dug their weapons further into their shoulders.

" _Alright, alright,"_ the pilot said. _"Just give us a sec."_

The hard steel plates covering the cockpit windows slowly lowered to reveal a green-haired, repeatedly pierced man in his late twenties.

Gomez looked over at Lt. Lang and nearly had a heart attack. The bastard lowered his weapon and _smiled._ And not a _mean_ smile. Then she almost had _another_ heart attack when she saw the whole damn Winter Contingent lower _their_ weapons andsmile.

" _Hey Sarge,"_ the colorful man said.

"You're supposed to announce yourself to air traffic control, Jake," Lang said. "And it's _Lieutenant,_ not Sergeant."

" _Not for that threat to Sebastian, it isn't,"_ the pilot said. " _That comment was sure as a Kraken's ass worth a demotion. And honestly, your traffic controllers suck. I told them who I was but they still wouldn't let me land."_

"That's because you didn't call ahead and get the day's code from the Major," Lang said. Gomez felt like she'd been transported into an alternate dimension. She genuinely expected to discover that the Grimm were peaceful harbingers of sweets and bedtime stories in this new and exciting place.

" _Damn; knew I was forgetting something,"_ Jake said, smiling wickedly.

Lt. Lang shook his head. "Is Lynda still there?"

" _Still here, Lieutenant,"_ a woman's voice said. Gomez just saw her peek her head past the pilot Jake. " _Against my better judgment, as usual. And you know you're going to pay for that Sebastian thing, right? Jake's not going to let that go, not a threat to the BF, even if it is just a picture of him. And there's nothing more devious than a fighter pilot stuck on shuttle duty._ "

"He can try his luck," Lt. Lang smirked. Gomez was certain of it now; she was in an alternate dimension. She tried to think back, looking for when the crossover might have happened. Was it sometime in the sprint behind the WC? She'd stumbled on that rock, was that when? Or was it earlier? In the barrack? What if she'd always been in an alternate dimension, just one nested in _another_ dimension and now she was finally getting a peek at the outer one after all this time?

Her head hurt.

"Alright, open her up, Jake," Lt. Lang said. He turned around at the several dozen soldiers around him. "Stand down, soldiers. They're expected. They just don't know anything about protocol."

" _I resent that statement,"_ Jake said as the sound of engines slowly quieted. " _'Don't know' and 'don't care' are two_ completely _different things."_

Gomez looked over at Dick. He shook his head, mouth still hanging open. Apparently, neither of them knew what was going on anymore.

The large bay door of the airship cracked open and a young girl's voice said, "Is it safe to come out now?"

To Gomez' horror, Lt. Lang _kept smiling,_ "Yes, ma'am. Just some friendly ribbing."

The door opened wider. Gomez saw a girl in a black-and-red dress and a cloak to match, another in a white dress sporting a scar over one eye, _another_ with bright yellow hair and a… confident brown-leather jacket, then finally a faunusin black, her dark cat ears peaking up out of her raven hair.

"Funny," the one in white said sarcastically. "Last time I checked, 'friendly ribbing' didn'tusually involve loaded guns." The girl looked familiar, but Gomez couldn't place why.

"Not usually, no ma'am," Lt. Lang said unapologetically. Then, "What's all that?"

Gomez followed his eye. There were several crates strapped to the other side of the bay, all of varying sizes.

"Presents," the one in red said brightly.

"Yeah," the yellow-haired one continued, grabbing a package about the size of a shoebox and pulling it loose.

"Starting with," she turned the box over as if looking for a tag, "Private First Class Helena Giorgi. Big H! Vacuo Chocolates!" She threw the large box forcefully at one of the Winter Contingent soldiers in the crowd.

"Oooph!" the woman grunted, stumbling back as she caught the heavy box. Then, after a pause, "Thanks, Yang!"

"No problem."

"Alright, roll up, roll up," the one in red said. "Everybody gets something!"

"Really, Ruby?" Lt. Lang said, finally showing some exasperation with the situation.

"Really," the girl-in-red-who-was-apparently-called-Ruby said.

Gomez looked around as the four girls handed out presents to the most intimidating, most badass, most damn _scary_ military unit she'd ever met as if they were children during the Summer Festival.

Gomez realized that there were really two crowds at that point: the Winter Contingent, rapidly receiving their presents and laughing as the newcomers joked; and the Marine grunts, so confused by everything that most of them were just covering their gaping mouths instead of actually closing them.

"Adler! Master Decks from all four kingdoms!" the yellow-haired one called Yang shouted, interrupting Gomez' train of thought. The large pile of parcels was almost gone and nearly all of the members of the WC held their very own present, apparently from around the globe.

"Wait, really?!" a man's voice shouted out. "I thought you were still one short!"

"I was," Yang said, handing the box to the corporal called Adler, "but we had a mission in Mistral a few weeks ago and the lady was selling them at a discount."

"A five-finger discount?" another soldier asked.

"Ha, ha, ha," Yang said sarcastically. "Like we'd even need one. The number of things that get shoved at us… well let's just say your quartermaster would be sorting for months if we accepted half of it."

"That's what you get for being such show offs," the soldier shot back. "If you kept your heads down like us, you wouldn't have to worry about that."

"We'll take that under advisement," Yang replied seriously. The soldier snorted.

"And second-to-lastly, Lieutenant," the girl in white said, drawing two boxes out.

"What's this?" Lt. Lang said. The rest of the Contingent looked over.

"Well, Jake notwithstanding, we heard about your promotion," the girl in white said.

"Yeah," the girl named Ruby said, "So, to commemorate this prestigious occasion," the girl in white rolled her eyes, then glared at Ruby's falsely lofty tone, "we thought we'd knock out two birds with one stone."

The girl in white handed over the two packages. When the Lieutenant had unwrapped them, Gomez could just see a box of fancy cigars in one hand. The sort of cigars every sergeant that had seen a movie wanted but not a single one of them could afford. Then the Lieutenant moved the other unwrapped present and Gomez stared.

It was a bottle of bourbon. Not just any bourbon though; it looked like a genuine _Mistral Round_. One of those was worth three months' salary for a captain; a lieutenant would starve before they could afford one.

Lt. Lang was silent. In fact, the whole Winter Contingent was suddenly silent; which of course made the whole damn _landing pad_ silent.

Even still, Gomez could barely hear the response.

" _Why?"_ Lt. Lang whispered.

It was the girl in white that responded. " _Because you have a very difficult job, and we thought you might need a few creature comforts to keep your spirits up."_

The Lt. took a moment to respond. Finally, somewhat louder, he said, "Thank you, Weiss."

"No problem, Sarge," Yang said brightly. The lieutenant shook his head, a smirk curling onto his face that Gomez could just barely see. "Oh, and the cigars were Blake's idea."

"I didn't think you'd stop being a sergeant the moment they promoted you," the girl-in-black-that-was-apparently-named-Blake said, smiling lightly.

"You're damn right I wouldn't," Lt. Lang said, shaking the girl's hand. "Thank you."

"Right," the one called Ruby said, interrupting the others, "now that that's dealt with, where's the command tent?"

Lt. Lang shook his head again. "This way, ma'am." He briefly turned back toward the airship. "Jake! Park your ship away from the rest; if I remember Lynda's typical payload at all, we _really_ don't want any confusion."

"Aye, sir," Jake said, his previous jaunty tone replaced with a genuinely respectful one. "And congrats, by the way."

The Lt. gave a two-finger salute, then turned away toward the officers' tents.

The Winter Contingent followed, almost immediately perfectly disciplined again, marching in step behind their lieutenant. The rest of the soldiers on the landing pad stayed behind in shocked silence.

Eventually, almost tentatively, Dick asked the question on everyone's tongue. "What the hell just happened?" He seemed to be speaking mainly to the air.

Strangely, the air didn't answer.

oooooo

"So this," Lt. Colonel Hollin began, looking down at the four Huntresses in front of him, "is Team RWBY."

A long pause began. Yang idly picked her nails, Ruby flattened her dress, Blake's eyes followed the Lt. Colonel, and Weiss stood at the closest thing to attention she could manage, looking over the Lt. Colonel's left shoulder like Winter had taught her.

Winter herself was standing behind the four in a much more impressive execution of attention.

"Welcome to Ankel Marine Base," the Lt. Colonel said formally after a moment. His eyes lingered on Blake for the third time, then he continued. "As you no doubt understand," he looked doubtingly at the four Huntresses, "our existing accommodations for a force your size are... limited."

"That's fine," Ruby said in her usual bright voice. Behind her, Winter closed her eyes. "We brought a tent."

"It seemed more polite," Blake said calmly.

"Plus most of the bases we've been to haven't had anything small enough for us," Yang said. "We usually have to share with a platoon.

"It's awkward," Ruby said.

Another pause. "I see," the Lt. Colonel said. Then, as if Yang and Ruby hadn't said anything, "You are aware that this is a _military_ base, and therefore subject to _military_ food and accommodations?"

"We've fought all over the world, Lt. Colonel," Blake said blandly, reiterating her teammate's comment. "We're usedto military cuisine and accommodations." She smiled, "Or lack thereof."

The Lt. Colonel seemed to doubt that. "Well, if that's the case," his tone implied his disbelief, "then once again, welcome to Ankel Marine Base. Major Schnee, if you could see to their particulars?"

Winter's eyes narrowed. Despite this, her answer was crisp and clean, "Yes, Lt. Colonel."

Turning on one heel, she led the way out of the Lt. Colonel's partition of the command tent, Team RWBY following close behind. She led them through Hollin's Reception Office partition, around the table in the war room, and finally out into open air.

Only after they were several yards away from the command tent did Winter speak, "That was… odd. Even for you four."

"Lt. Colonel Hollin hates faunus," Blake said calmly.

"Yeah, we've seen that reaction a hundred times now," Yang said.

"We've found that it's best just to ignore it," Weiss said.

"You know, let our actions speak for themselves," Ruby finished.

The way the four Huntresses completed each other's' thoughts always threatened to give Winter a headache. "I see. That _is_ the correct response."

"We know," Yang said, smirking.

Winter bit back what she wanted to reply with. "Sergeant!" she suddenly shouted.

A hard-bitten woman with burn scars across half her face started at the call. "Yes, ma'am!"

Turning slightly to her sister, Winter said quietly, "How large is your tent?"

"Six-person plus effects," Weiss replied equally quietly. "Fifteen and a quarter feet by 20 feet even."

Winter raised an eyebrow, "Bunks won't fit in that."

"We're used to futons," Ruby replied. "If you could find six cots for us, we'd be in heaven."

Winter turned away, frowning. Then she said loudly, "Where is there 25 square feet of unused and _unneeded_ ground?"

The sergeant looked around from the waist up, since her feet seemed rooted to the spot. Then she pointed, "There should be that much behind the showers, ma'am!"

"Is there not anything _better_?" Winter demanded.

"No—No ma'am. Sorry, ma'am!"

"That's fine," Ruby said, soothingly. "We can do that. It's not going to be any worse than that typhoon in Mistral."

"I thought we agreed never to bring that up?" Weiss said, narrowing her eyes and smiling.

Ruby sighed and slapped a money bill into Weiss' hand. "Dang it."

Turning away from her sister's smug face, Winter scowled at the sergeant as if this was all her fault. The sergeant all but shivered under the look. "Lead the way, then, _Sergeant."_

The woman practically jumped into motion.

oooooo

"Why the hell are _we_ on babysitting duty, Sarge?" Gomez demanded.

"Because, for my sins, I decided to walk across the yard at precisely the wrong time," Sergeant Frankel said. "Now, listen close you lot because I will _never_ say this again," the barrack leaned forward at the tone. Sergeant Frankel looked somberly at them all. "I'm sorry."

Silence met the apology. Then, after what seemed like forever, Dick said, "She can't say fairer than that."

Gomez grumbled under her breath. "This is bullshit. Signed up to fight Grimm and now I'm babysitting mascots. Why can't the Winter Contingent handle it? They're the ones cozy with them."

"Because Colonel Hollin said so," the Sarge replied, "But we'd do it regardless of who gave the orders; it's our lot now, so we're going to deal with it." Gomez almost turned around and rammed it all down her throat, but then she thought better of the suicidal idea upon seeing the Sarge's face.

"Yeah," Gomez whispered into her pillow. " _Deal_ with it."

oooooo

"And this is where the mess hall is," Gomez said, her tone expressing every ounce of her irritated boredom. The sun was barely in the sky and she was stuck with this crap. The four girls and Dick followed as she walked them around the various tents.

"The mess tent's a bit small," the girl called Ruby said thoughtfully. Gomez rolled her eyes. "You guys run meals in shifts, then, right?"

That was an unexpected insight. "Yeah. You'll be joining the Winter Contingent on last shift. If you've got any complaints about the timing, keep them to yourself. The others are too packed to fit you in."

The yellow-haired girl named Yang scowled and seemed about to say something when Ruby smacked her across the stomach. Gomez raised an eyebrow, scowled back, and waited for Yang's own dark expression to slowly dissolve. She congratulated herself on the victory, unaware of just how monumentally wrong she was to do so.

"The cooks here are actually pretty good," Dick said from behind the four girls. "They've got a pretty wide range of things they can make, and most of it's actually edible."

"Do they cook fish?" the faunus Blake asked. Cat ears; figured.

"Sometimes," Dick answered. "Not on order, though."

"Moving on," Gomez growled. "Just up ahead we have the firing range. You can practice there, but only _after_ the rest of the Battalion's had their chance."

"Yeah, uh," Yang said, looking skeptically at the range. "No, no we really can't."

"Is there something wrong with our firing range?" Gomez demanded.

"No," the white-clad girl called Weiss said. "We simply have different training requirements."

Gomez lifted an eyebrow.

"Are there any interesting rock formations nearby?" Blake asked.

"Yes, actually," Dick said excitedly, cutting off Gomez brutal retort, "There's a seismic fault about ten miles from the base. Up in the hills."

Gomez didn't like being ignored, especially when she was getting ready to ream the girls out for rudeness and idiocy. She _really_ wasn't the right person for this job. "What the hell do you want to know about that for?"

"Practice," Yang said.

"Private Jenners, this fault," Ruby said, "Does it have several _individual_ formations or just a few big ones?"

"It's an old fault," Dick replied, walking backwards to move next to Gomez, "and the wind goes right through there. There are dozens of standing stones out there; erosion and all that. Some of them are several stories tall."

"Sounds perfect," Blake said.

"Perfect for _what?_ " Gomez demanded.

" _Practice,_ " Yang repeated, rolling her eyes. "Honestly, don't they teach you Atlas grunts how to listen?"

Before Gomez could lift a finger, Dick was nudging her forward. "Moving _on,"_ he said, leading them toward a large dirt circle surrounded by bleachers. The bleachers were raised high above the ring with a tall wall dropping off the banisters. "This is our challenge ring. Mainly it's used to keep problems between soldiers from boiling over. Most bases don't have them anymore, but frontliners like ours usually keep them up..."

oooooo

"Frikking _dammit!"_ Gomez growled immediately after returning to her barrack. "Disrespectful, rude, ignorant _bitches!"_

"I'm not going to argue with the first two," Dick said, "but that last one's still up in the air."

"How the _hell_ is it still up in the air, you limp Dick?" Gomez said.

"Because," Dick said, "unless I'm dumber than you think I am, that Weiss girl is Major Schnee's sister."

That surprised Gomez. "Her _sister?_ Why the hell do you think _that_?"

"Similar hair, similar clothing, similar demeanor, similar weapon, and that scar over her eye," Dick rattled off immediately. "That last one says she's seen real fighting."

Gomez thought about that. He had a point, but she wasn't about to admit it. "I seriously doubt it."

"The way I see it," Dick continued despite the rudeness, "if she _is_ Major Schnee's sister, then those four being here means they know a lot more than we think. Sure as I know anything I know that no sister of Major Schnee's is going to be ignorant."

"Private Jenners, why haven't you gotten your first hook yet?" Sergeant Frankel's voice said from the door. It seemed she'd walked in sometime during their argument.

"I think I've just got too winning a personality, Sarge," Dick replied immediately, smiling back at the sergeant's scarred face.

Sergeant Frankel laughed. "Yeah, that's sure as shit it."

"You _need_ us, Sarge?" Gomez said.

"As a matter of fact I _do_ , Corporal," Frankel said. "Seems _somebody_ mentioned a rock formation out in the hills," the smile dropped immediately off Dick's face, "and Team RWBY has decided they want to go check it out."

"Really, Sarge? Can't someone else-"

"The Winter Contingent intends to join them," Frankel said ignoring the interruption completely. "So. The powers on high," Gomez flinched at the oblique reference to Colonel Hollin, "have decided that these _external_ fighting forces need an _escort._ "

Gomez stomach dropped out. "You don't mean..."

"We leave in fifteen," Frankel said.

"Aww _man_..."


	4. Oh How Wrong We Were

Gomez tried not to quiver under the stare Major Schnee was giving her and Dick.

She hadn't said anything about the two of them and Sergeant Frankel joining their little hike, but with _that_ look she didn't really have to.

"Well, Weiss," Major Schnee said eventually. "Your team sets the pace."

"Alright," Weiss said, a small hint of an arched tone in her voice, "But our _team leader,"_ she looked pointedly at Major Schnee, _"_ will run ahead. None of us can keep up with her anyway."

Gomez thought that was more than a little arrogant, but none of the Winter Contingent made an issue of it. Major Schnee did, however, scowl down at Weiss.

"Do you need a cadence?" Weiss asked the Contingent, ignoring the scowl.

"No," Lt. Lang replied. "We'll just match your pace."

"Alright," Weiss said, turning toward the open gates of the base. "Then here we go."

Gomez tried and failed to stifle a smile at the pace the girl eventually set. It was _way_ too fast. There was no way those little girls could keep it up. Pretty soon they'd slow to a crawl and look like the idiots they were.

Eventually, she heard Weiss counting off. It was much slower than the speed they were going so it wasn't a cadence.

"One. Two. Three. Four." In a cloud of rose petals the girl name Ruby pulled up in front of Weiss, running backwards at the same fast pace as the others.

"I saw a chipmunk," she said. Then she turned and ran away again. No one reacted to this absurd declaration or her sudden disappearance.

"One. Two. Three. Four," Weiss counted off loudly. "One. Two. Three. Four."

Another cloud of rose petals. "Actually, it was a squirrel."

"One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. Three. Four."

"Found a fox den," the girl replied. Only then did Gomez realize what the counting was. Ruby was sprinting ahead and returning on a four-second-count. She couldn't tell _how_ , but the girl apparently didn't care what Gomez did or didn't understand.

As the path into the hills toward the rock formations started developing a serious incline, Gomez looked over at her teammate and scowled.

"Don't blame me, corporal," Dick said between breaths, "I didn't know we'd get stuck with escort duty. Besides, I can't resist a pretty girl, and those ears of hers are downright adorable."

"You resist me all the time, _Dick_ ," Gomez challenged darkly.

"Because you curse too much, Corporal," Dick replied calmly. "It seems like every other word you say is a curse word. That, or an insult."

Gomez snarled back at her teammate but even she couldn't argue with what the prick said.

Soon, though, she noticed something that distracted her pretty damn well. Her breathing was quickening as they ran up the steep hills but the twiggy girls at the front didn't slow their pace. Not even a little bit.

"The hell..." she said, looking over at Sergeant Frankel. Sarge shook her head between breaths, apparently noticing the same thing. How were a couple scrawny brats keeping this up?

On and on, almost exclusively uphill, the four girls led them along the path. The entire time the girl Weiss kept up her four-count and her rosy little friend kept up the sprinting.

Gomez was breathing heavily now, there was no doubt about that. Hell, even the Winter Contingent seemed to need a few extra breaths every now and then. But apparently that didn't matter, because none of the people in front of her seemed like they were going to slow down.

Eventually, Gomez spared a glance behind her. If she'd had the breath to spare, she'd have cussed at what she saw. They were only five or six miles from the base. They were barely half-way to the rocks. At this pace, Gomez'd be dead before they arrived.

The few nearby members of the Winter Contingent had started breathing hard, but Gomez could tell they refused to fall behind, even if it killed them. They just had that look in their eye whenever she managed a peek.

On and on and _on_ they ran. Gomez brain felt like it was turning to mush with every stride. Her feet dragged so much she might as well have been skating across the dirt.

Then, as if by some divine providence, the pace ahead of them slowed. Not by much, but compared to what they'd _been_ doing, it was practically like standing still.

It took a few minutes of the slower pace before Gomez' brain started functioning again. She took several too-large sips from her canteen, trying to replace some of the gallons of water she'd lost in the last… god knows how long. Next to her, Dick was doing the same. Hell, even Sergeant Frankel looked dead on her feet.

Then she heard Lt. Lang's voice from the front. It sounded just out of breath. Bastard. "Ma'am?"

Blake was the one that replied, "We're losing the ones at the back."

The Winter Contingent, almost as a single entity, turned to look back at the three soldiers, still stumbling along at the new pace.

"If they couldn't keep the pace then they should have stayed behind," Major Schnee said coldly. She sounded more or less as tired as Blake, which wasn't much.

"C'mon, Winter," Yang said, "It's not like they volunteered. I mean, that Gomez chick _hates_ me; she'd _never_ volunteer for this."

Gomez hadn't thought her exhausted face could get any more red, but apparently it could. She tried to come up with something scathing to say in response to that patronizingly considerate comment, but her brain hadn't completely solidified yet.

Major Schnee was silent for a moment. "Fine," she said. "We can run ahead."

"Nah," Ruby said, returning from her trip into the trees, apparently hearing the whole conversation as if by magic. "We'll just practice longer on the rocks. The platoon'll get plenty from this pace. Right, Lieutenant?"

When he replied, Lt. Lang almost didn't seem like he wanted to, "Yes, ma'am, we will."

"Teams stick together," Weiss said, her voice unstable as she kept up her running. "Rise or fall, we stick together."

Winter didn't respond.

It took them who knew how long to reach the rocks but when they finally did Gomez, Dick, and even the Sarge were too exhausted to wind down the right way. They just flopped onto the ground like a couple of kitbags, trying to suck the sky into their lungs and failing miserably.

When Gomez finally got enough oxygen in her to form a coherent thought, she looked around and saw something that almost reenergized her through sheer vindication: the Winter Contingent seemed almost as tired as she was.

The four girls and Major Schnee, however, were still standing, and actually winding themselves down properly.

Several minutes passed. One by one, starting with Lt. Lang, the Winter Contingent rose to their feet. By that point, the four girls and Major Schnee seemed fully recovered. Hell, even Gomez was feeling better, and it looked like the Sarge and Dick were too.

"Did you have a plan for how to do this?" Major Schnee asked doubtingly.

"Of course," Weiss replied, sounding mildly insulted.

"We'll start with one-on-one, switch that up, then move on to two-on-one, switch that up, then, depending, either three-on-one or tackling spectres," Ruby replied.

Gomez saw Major Schnee raise her eyebrow. "You don't think I can take each of you individually?"

"Of course you can," Blake replied. That seemed to take Major Schnee aback.

"Yeah, that's just training for us," Yang said. "It's been a while since we went up against someone better than us."

"It's been difficult to practice as a result," Weiss said. "Let alone improve."

Gomez had no idea what they were talking about.

Major Schnee stayed silent. Then, "Alright. That seems like a plausible plan."

"Your sister is always such a _charming_ fountain of praise," Yang said to Weiss.

Gomez saw a muscle jump in Major Schnee's jaw. She couldn't understand why Yang wasn't shivering in fear like Gomez was at the look the Major directed at the blonde woman.

"Right then," Ruby said. "Me first."

Gomez still didn't understand what the girls were talking about. However, sitting up and looking out at the tall, jagged rocks jutting up from a small canyon, it didn't take long for that to change.

oooooo

Dazed, Gomez watched the four Huntresses and Major Schnee make their way across the tips of rocks to meet the rest of the soldiers at the top of their small cliff.

The Winter Contingent was huddled together talking about the… indescribable conflict between gods they'd all just witnessed, while Sergeant Frankel, Gomez, and Dick couldn't even form a single _thought_ about it all.

"...you had kept your feet up, I wouldn't have been able to pin you," Major Schnee said critically to Yang.

"And if _you_ hadn't made a point of pinning her down, _I_ wouldn't have been able to get under your guard," Blake said.

"Face it Winter, you're amazing at fighting single opponents and hordes of Grimm, but you kinda stink at fighting a good team," Ruby said lightly.

"We have to fix that," Weiss said blandly. Gomez saw the look Schnee shot her sister; it was the same sort of crippling glare that the Sarge said she'd gotten the day before.

Major Schnee looked away first. "Lieutenant," she snapped off.

"Ma'am!" Lt. Lang said.

"I want that recording on my desk by 1900," she said.

"I've already sent it ahead, ma'am," Lt. Lang said. "It'll be there when you get back."

Major Schnee paused. "Good. Weiss, your team sets the pace."

Gomez nearly died right then and there.

"Alright," Ruby said, while Weiss narrowed her eyes at her sister. Winter shot a glare back at her.

"Sergeant Frankel!"

"Ma'am!" the Sarge belted out.

"A word," Major Schnee said menacingly.

The Sarge walked over like she was heading toward a firing squad. Major Schnee and the sergeant had a few words, Sarge went stiff as Dick's dad at the gentleman's club, and then she walked back to where Dick and Gomez were watching.

"What did she-"

"Not now," Sarge said. As much as Gomez wanted that answer, Major Schnee was right over there. Gomez'd rather jump in a deathstalker hole than cross her over this.

Frankly, she counted herself lucky to be alive already.

oooooo

"What did she say, Sarge?" Gomez demanded when they got back through the gate and the five of them had gotten some of their breath back. Downhill was definitely easier.

The sergeant stopped where she stood. "Listen up you two, because I'm only allowed to say this once," she glared menacingly at each of them. She took a deep breath, "Everything you just saw, from the run up to the run down, is now classified Need-To-Know Secret."

"What?" Gomez asked. "But why-"

"Shut up, Corporal," Sergeant Frankel snapped. "Why doesn't matter. What matters is that Major Schnee, a high-ranking member of the most elite fighting force in the entire Atlas Military, just hung a 30-year jail sentence around our necks if we say a damn thing to anyone. _Anyone,_ Gomez."

The sergeant glared at her, "You call your mama and tell her, you go to prison." the Sarge glared at Dick, "You blab to each other in the barrack, you go to prison." She shifted her glare again, "You tell you damn _dog_ about it, _you go to prison._ That's what Secret means.

"Need-to-Know means we can't even tell our superiors," Sergeant Frankel said darkly. "None of them, not even Colonel Hollin. Both of you understand that?"

Gomez and Dick nodded their heads. Gomez swallowed. "I'm starting to feel that bit you mentioned, Sarge."

"Good," she replied, momentarily looking frightened. "Keep it there."


	5. Lessons Learned

"Alright, this is getting boring," Yang said after her and Blake's third knockout of Weiss' sister.

It wasn't that she wasn't good; she was _really_ good. Better than any one of them. It was just that she was predictable now. They could anticipate her a lot better than she could anticipate them.

"Right, Lt. Lang!" she shouted toward the cliff.

"" _Yes, ma'am?!"_ he shouted back.

"Grab, I don't know, ten of your people and get out here!"

" _Ma'am?_ " he yelled back.

"Just _do_ it, Lieutenant," Yang shouted.

"What are you doing?!" Winter demanded as she reached her. The rest of the Team joined them less than a second later.

"You're never going to keep up with us if you're working alone, Winter," Ruby said lightly, zipping next to her sister, immediately on the same page.

"Too much of what we're doing relies on working with someone else," Blake continued.

"I'm sorry, Winter," Weiss said to her older sister's furious scowl, "But they're right. We're much more unpredictable than you could ever be, and that's inevitably going to make us harder to stop."

"Basically," Yang said, "You need someone watching one of us while you watch the other."

"Are you _insinuating_ that I'm not good enough to beat two of you together?" Winter said.

"Yes," Weiss replied, staring hard into her sister's insulted eyes. "You're not good enough to keep track of what two of us are doing at once."

"If _anyone_ is, we haven't met them," Blake said. "At least not recently."

"It's not because you aren't _amazing,"_ Ruby said.

"It's that you just don't have enough eyes and ears," Yang finished. "Train all you want, you just can't watch two things at once."

"I have fought _legions_ of Grimm _on my own,"_ Winter growled. "I can focus _just fine_ on more than one target."

"Except we're not Grimm," Ruby said firmly.

Winter ground her teeth but didn't respond.

"Besides, you can only be _better_ at fighting Grimm if you learn how to share some of that focus," Blake said. "It works for us, anyway."

Lt. Lang hopped the last gap between them, along with a dozen of his soldiers. Looking at Winter he said, "Ma'am, orders?"

Winter paused, scowling. "Feel free to do what they say, Lieutenant," Winter said bitterly. "It's not as if I really seem to have any say in the matter."

As Lt. Lang opened his mouth, Yang said, "Of course you do, Winter. They're your Contingent, not ours." Lang looked at her and shut his mouth. "You're the one in charge; if you really don't want them here, send them back."

Winter glared at Yang. Eventually she said, "Do what you brought them over here to do. I'll decide then whether they stay."

"Thank you," Ruby said, nodding at her. Winter shifted her glare to Ruby, then settled it there.

None of them responded to it.

"Right, Lieutenant," Yang said. "Winter needs some people to back her up while she's fighting us. Think you guys can do it?"

Lt. Lang's eyes widened. "Uh, yes. Yes ma'am, we can."

"Great!" Ruby said.

"Live fire is okay, Lieutenant," Blake said. "We can take the hits."

"You expecting us to hit you, ma'am?" Lang asked. The other soldiers behind him looked at each other.

"We expect you try, Lieutenant," Weiss said, smiling.

He smiled back somewhat shakily, "Yes, ma'am."

"Let's move _on,_ " Winter growled.

"Right, since we're temporarily giving you orders," Yang said to raised eyebrows and glares, "here's what you guys are going to do…"

Yang paused for effect. Then Ruby said, "Whatever you think will help."

"Play to your strengths," Blake said.

"Cover Winter's weaknesses," Weiss said.

"Basically, do what you can to win," Yang said.

Lang was silent a moment. "Yes, ma'am."

"Cool, let's get back out there then," Ruby said.

oooooo

"Dammit, no!" Winter shouted when one of her soldiers stepped in her way as she tried to reposition. The two of them fell to the ground, where Weiss' freezing blast caught them.

"Private Davis, that incompetence is _not_ acceptable!" Winter said, extricating herself from her sister's blast.

"You're right, Winter, it isn't," Weiss said coldly. Private Davis quailed at the two of them.

"Honestly Winter, how you can continue to ignore your team's positioning is beyond me," Weiss continued. " _You_ are the wild card, Winter. _You_ are the one that needs to keep track of _Davis_. _You_ didn't, so _you_ ran into _him._ "

"Hate to drive that home," Ruby said almost apologetically before Winter to respond, "But you're just too mobile for your team to keep track of you all the time."

"You're really blaming _me_ for that?!" Winter said incredulously.

"Yes," Weiss replied sternly. "You said you could keep track of more than one thing at a time, Winter. So do it. Your Contingent can't move like we can, so if you really think you can handle two of us, then a dozen of them shouldn't be a problem."

Winter ground her teeth. "He was in _my_ way."

"Only because you let him be," Weiss replied levelly.

"That is _enough,_ Weiss!" Winter shouted. The entire formation fell silent. "You cannot stand there and tell me I was responsible for this."

"Too bad," Weiss replied. "I just did, and I'll continue to do it until you admit it."

"You know what?" Yang said, pulling up beside her sister. "I think we should prove it to her."

"I agree," Blake said.

Ruby shrugged her shoulders at Weiss. Weiss spoke, "Fine. Winter, you really think it was Davis' fault? You really think you had no responsibility? Then we'll show you exactly what you didn't do."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Winter demanded.

"Get over there," Blake said, pointing to one end of the rock formation.

"It's going to be one on four," Yang said, smiling. It wasn't a nice smile.

"Unless you think you can't hold your own long enough prove us wrong," Weiss challenged.

Winter was too angry to ignore that challenge.

She went to her end while Team RWBY went to the other. They both waited, but it was Winter that moved first.

She launched herself off a Glyph at her sister who, a split second later, mirrored her.

Weiss' teammate sprinted after her, rose petals spreading out behind her.

Yang jetted forward. She pulled her teammate behind her by the woman's whip, then launched Blake like a rock from a slingshot as soon as her feet touched the ground.

Winter ducked under her sister's sword to strike at the landing Blake, hoping to take down the center and then whittle the rest down one by one. She cast a Glyph under herself to avoid the shot from Ruby, then sent a fiery projectile from her sword at the girl in black.

But Blake had already moved, her semblance taking the strike. The blazing form of Yang took its place, who immediately struck Winter viciously hard before she could react, the young Huntress's fist accelerated by the yellow gun around her wrist.

Winter flew back, but not very far. Almost immediately, the breath was forced from her lungs as she collided, hard, against one of her sister's Glyphs.

Yet before she could even touch the hard rock of the pillar below her, Ruby was there. She hooked her scythe around Winter's stomach. Winter struggled against her missing breath to break free, but Ruby's scythe was moving too fast, the firing gun at the end pushing them too quickly.

Then she was flying through the air. She tried to cast glyphs to catch herself, but each time, one of the Huntresses blocked the best place to do so with a bullet or a glyph. Dimly, Winter registered that it was always only _one_ girl. No duplication of effort, everyone on the same page despite time moving at the speed of gravity.

Eventually, she hit the side of one of the pillars, but the Huntresses weren't done. Almost the instant Winter _began_ to raise her sword, Blake had embedded her whip deep into the rock beside Winter. An instant later, she'd circled around the pillar and pulled Winter tight against it.

Before Winter could so much as strain against the restraints, Yang plowed screaming through her. Or rather, if it weren't for the slight lack of resilience of the pillar, _would_ have ploughed through her.

And again, she was falling, crumbling stone moving with her, dazed by the barrage, completely incapable of stopping herself.

But someone could. She landed hard on a Glyph cast by Weiss. But _again,_ no time at _all_ passed before Ruby flew out of nowhere, her scythe contracted into a large rifle, and landed with one foot on either side of Winter, her weapon pointed directly at Winter's face.

Fear was an uncommon emotion for Winter, especially when among allies. But at that moment, with Ms. Rose's barrel almost completely obscuring her vision, surrounded on all sides by Huntresses barely out of _school_ that had beaten her down in less than a minute, it was an emotion that, for that one cold moment, burrowed deep under her skin, causing her to shiver.

Then it was gone.

"Coordination," Weiss said from the top of a pillar. Ruby jumped off her teammate's Glyph, dashing from pillar to pillar until she reached the top and stood next to Weiss. Blake used her whip to pull the dazed Winter up, while Yang stared down at her rising form, arms crossed over her chest.

"You always, _always_ know where your teammates are," Ruby said as Winter pulled herself onto the top of Blake's pillar. "If you're not keeping track of them, people get hurt. _Everyone_ needs to know where _everyone else_ is, but _you_ need to know more than anyone else does."

"You're too fast Winter," Blake said as Winter stood. "Your troops can be the best platoon in the world, but they won't always be able to know where you are."

"So it's down to you to know where _they_ are," Yang said.

"If you don't, how can you help them when they need it?" Weiss asked.

Feeling her cheeks turn roughly the shade of a ripe apple, Winter said, "Are you finished?"

"No," Ruby said. "You didn't ask the most important question."

"Which is?" Winter demanded.

"If it's so important for you to keep track of them, why do they need to keep track of you?" Blake said.

A pause stretched. Finally, Winter demanded, "Well?"

"So they can be able to help _you_ when you need it," Ruby said.

"Duh," Yang added.

"Winter, you're a one-woman Grimm-slaying army," Weiss said, soothing Winter's very raw ego slightly. "Can you imagine how much better you'd be, how many more people you could save if you let your platoon help enough that you could step outside what's possible for you alone?"

"What do you mean?" Winter asked.

"Imagine a situation where you're trying to save someone surrounded by a few hundred Grimm," Blake said.

Yeah," Yang said, catching on immediately. "In a situation like that, you _could_ jump right into the middle and try and get them out yourself…"

"But there's no way you could fight that many Grimm from the inside," Ruby said. "Not just _one_ Specialist, not even _you._ "

"But what if you had a team?" Weiss said. "What if they were the best of the best, the sort of people regular soldiers whisper about when they think they're not listening?"

Winter looked at the four friends; her eyes narrowed.

"What if _they_ surrounded the _Grimm_ , started blasting away?" Yang said.

"Grenades and rockets coming from all sides," Blake said.

"Rifles blazing," Ruby said, smiling.

"Well, then you'd be able to jump right into the middle of the Grimm and fend them off until your team could whittle the Grimm down or buy you enough time to Glyph the civilians out," Weiss said.

"Basically," Ruby finished, "With a good team working together with you, I mean really _with_ you, you can do things you'd never even think of trying. And neither of you has to do things you aren't used to."

Winter considered this. It was a concept that had been taught in training, but Specialists are, by and large, solitary fighters, so there had been no emphasis on it.

Clearly it worked for Team RWBY, but could she make it work for her platoon?

"Thank you for this lesson," Winter said detachedly, falling back on her military etiquette training.

Yang rolled her eyes. The others glanced meaningfully at each other.

"Now let's try this again," Ruby said brightly, moving to one end of the canyon. "We have a few more hours to burn…"

oooooo

"What's going on?" Gomez asked as Team RWBY rushed back toward the Winter Contingent's barrack.

"Something's happened," Yang said, the words so dark Gomez could hardly believe they'd come from the fiery blonde's mouth.

Looking around, the rest of the base seemed perfectly normal, but heads were turning their way.

Very quickly, the four teammates and the two grunts reached the barrack. Gomez looked across at Dick as they approached the entry flap. Neither of them had been in the WC's barrack before.

Ruby held open the flap for the rest of her team, then waited for Gomez and Dick to follow.

Gomez first impression was confusion. She'd expected a pristine space, but there were book readers loose on tables, a few boots set roughly beside beds, and most of the beds were unmade.

Not _sloppy,_ necessarily, just lived in, a state even Gomez wasn't allowed to keep her space in.

However, beside each bed a weapon of some sort hung neatly inside a weapons chest, of which there were twenty five.

Deep into the barrack, at the very back, it looked like the whole Contingent was huddling around something. Team RWBY rushed toward them.

The soldiers parted to let them in, and Gomez and Dick ended up embedded in the middle. Between the shoulders and arms of WC members, Gomez could just see Major Schnee sitting in front of a screen.

"What's happened?" Ruby asked, concerned.

"The refugee camp outside of Vale is gone," Major Schnee said bluntly. Gomez thought she could hear a tinge of emotion in there somewhere, but she couldn't tell which kind.

"What-" Weiss said, " _How?"_

In-between the tense shoulders of the WC, Gomez saw Major Schnee turn her head. "The White Fang had an inside man," Major Schnee said harshly. A wave of anger passed through the WC all around Gomez.

"Adam, you _idiot!"_ Blake hissed to herself. "What the hell were you _thinking?!"_

Gomez looked left at Dick. His eyes were a little wide.

"You're sure?" Yang said from somewhere to Gomez' right.

"Yes," Major Schnee said.

"How do you-"

"He took credit for it," Major Schnee said brutally. Gomez could practically hear the violence in those words.

"Dammit!" Ruby said, her voice sounding choked up.

"Ms. Belladonna," Major Schnee said, "Any insights?"

Blake didn't answer immediately. Then, "No, Winter. It's just been too long. Adam's always been aggressive, even single-mindedly so. But there were _faunus_ in that camp. They were just people trying stay alive. The man I knew… I can't imagine him doing something like this."

Gomez gaped at Dick, his face matching hers. Blake Belladonna _knew_ the leader of the White Fang?!

"Last time we saw him, I tried to convince him to help us," Blake said. Gomez jaw dropped. "But he refused to listen."

"When was this?!" Winter demanded.

"A few months ago," Ruby replied. "During that fight in Vacuo."

"And you didn't think to _capture him?_ " Winter said.

"Of course we did," Yang said loudly. "But there were people that were going to die if we didn't help!"

"People _have_ died because you _did_ help _,"_ Major Schnee said, rising to her feet. The WC took a step back, putting Gomez and Dick closer to the five very lethal women. "You failed to see the strategic goal and this," she waved her hand at the recording of the fall of a large refugee camp looping on the screen, "is the result!"

Gomez could see Team RWBY clearly now. They were squared off against Major Schnee in a 'V,' with Ruby at the tip. Ruby lifted her chin.

"We _did_ think about the strategic goal," she said sternly. "That was the fight in the hurricane." She slapped Weiss' hand away for some reason. "The Grimm were tearing down the dam, and it was either capture Adam or save Vacuo. We chose to save Vacuo."

"Don't confuse yourself, Winter," Weiss said. The four Huntresses stood firm in front of Major Schnee. "We get the job done differently than you, but that does not mean we don't get the job done just as well."

Major Schnee glared at the four teammates while Gomez and Dick tried to silently sink back into the crowd. Someone put a hand on their shoulders and held them in place; she prayed silently to get out alive.

"Fine," Major Schnee said eventually. "The fact remains that Mr. Sinclair is still loose and getting increasingly violent."

"And right now, there's nothing we can do about that," Blake said. "I'm sure Ironwood is taking it very seriously, but he'll expect us to continue with our mission."

"Unless he says otherwise," Weiss said.

"Fine!" Major Schnee said again. "Lt. Lang!"

"Ma'am," the LT replied from Gomez' left.

"Proceed with the combat inspection," she said. "I want to see that you are all living up to my expectations."

" _Yes ma'am!"_ The WC shouted in unison. In practically a single motion, the Contingent rushed to clean up and prepare for this 'combat inspection.'

Gomez and Dick tried to edge after them, but no, of course they couldn't.

"You two!" Winter snapped. "Front and center!"

Yes, ma'am!" Gomez and Dick said in a staggered attempt at unison. Standing at attention in front of the downright-terrifying Major, Gomez waited for the worst.

"Leave them alone, Winter," Yang said.

"Yeah, you already have their tongues tied," Blake said.

"Anything more's overkill," Ruby finished. "I mean, what comes after 30 years? A firing squad?"

"Yes," Major Schnee said. Gomez fought harder than she'd ever fought in her life to keep from showing her terror.

"That's not necessary, Winter," Weiss said. "Look at them; do you really think they'd disobey you on this?"

Major Schnee glared at the two of them for a long, long moment. Then, she got in close. In a menacing whisper, almost too quiet for Gomez to hear, she spoke. "If you betray their trust," she said, every word a threat, "there will be no firing squad. Am I understood?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Gomez and Dick shouted in pitch-perfect unison.

"Then you're dismissed," Major Schnee said.

Gomez and Dick struggled to not sprint from the barrack.


	6. Underestimation

With the sun setting on another warm summer day, Winter and Lt. Lang watched one of their sergeants lead her squad around the left side of the plywood building in an attempt to flank the other three squads. Watching them move silently while the other three wove through the narrow hallways of the building, Winter searched for technical mistakes.

But none of her platoon missed a checked corner, a silent communication, or a covered rear. Each of them, the flanking squad and the three searching them out, moved with complete coordination. It had been just over a week since her sister's team had force-fed her that lesson, but her platoon was well-enough adapted to it that Winter was the one that had held them back.

But it wouldn't be long before she could work alongside her platoon as seamlessly as Team RWBY did with each other. Considering the additional bodies involved, Winter felt no small pride in that.

The flanking squad had just about pulled up behind the searching squads when a voice spoke from behind her.

"Major Schnee," Lt. Colonel Hollin said.

"I'm busy," Winter replied coldly.

"You and your platoon are under arrest for Conspiracy to Commit Espionage and Conspiracy to Commit Sabotage," Hollin said. "Relinquish your weapons immediately."

Winter turned to look at the Lt. Colonel. "Excuse me?" she asked. The Colonel's statement hadn't properly registered. The sound of gunfire behind her didn't help.

"You and your platoon are under arrest," Hollin said again. There were a dozen MPs behind him, but they all looked scared, even Hollin.

"Why?" Winter said, scowling. The drill behind her was nearly over, judging by the decreasing sound of gunfire.

"For harboring and facilitating the infiltration of a member of the White Fang," Hollin replied. "Now relinquish your weapons, or you will be relieved of them by force."

"You can't be serious," Lang said beside her. "Blake is _not_ a member of the White Fang."

"You received your orders directly from General Ironwood's office," Winter said. "Are you disobeying your orders, Lt. Colonel?"

"I am securing the safety of my base," he replied defiantly. "I'll let the JAG Corps deal with my orders."

Winter looked around at the MPs. They'd shouldered the rifles, but they were scared. Scared soldiers with loaded guns made big mistakes. Further defiance could very easily result in a base-wide firefight between her platoon and everyone else.

The MPs looked behind her as the sound of crunching boots grew louder. "Fine," Winter said coldly. She pulled her sword from its sheath and handed it over. Her platoon whispered loudly behind her. "We'll submit to your arrest."

She glared hard at Hollin, "But understand that this is the last major order you will ever give, Hollin. By this time tomorrow, you will be a civilian standing in front of a military tribunal."

Hollin snarled at her, "Bind them, Sergeant."

"Sir!"

As each member of her platoon handed over their weapon and submitted to being bound, Winter continued to glare at Hollin. A small smile crept over his lips. Winter kept her grin behind her teeth.

oooooo

As the Winter Contingent was led back to their barrack, since the base prison wasn't equipped for an entire platoon, they passed a hundred gawking soldiers. Winter kept her back straight and her head up, and behind her, her platoon did the same.

When they'd been sealed inside their barrack by three dozen soldiers, Winter saw the two grunts that had followed them around for the past month, as well as their sergeant. That ruled out traitors.

Winter and her platoon moved to the back where the grunts sat. Together, the twenty five soldiers joined the three of them on beds, tables, chairs, and even the dirt floor. The woman called Gomez looked terrified, but then so did the other two. "We didn't, Major, I swear we didn't!"

"Be quiet, Corporal," Winter said. "You wouldn't be in here if you had."

Gomez and the other two exhaled violently.

"Sir," Lt. Lang said, "Are we really going to let them do this?"

"For the moment, Lieutenant," Winter replied levelly, "we don't have a choice. The rules are too muddy for us to force our way through Hollin's orders."

"Yes, but we can't afford to wait for a JAG officer to sort it out."

"I never said we were going to," Winter said, her smile finally spreading across her face.

"Sir?"

"Who do we know that is outside of the chain of command?" Winter asked. Her platoon stirred. "Who do we know that doesn't care about protocol?"

Her platoon started to share her smile.

oooooo

"Hey, let go!" Yang shouted. "I'm moving, you bastard."

"Save it for later, Yang," Blake said as she scowled up at the MP Captain. Together, the MPs led Team RWBY, Jake, and Lynda into a slap-dash concrete structure, past a sergeant manning a communications and surveillance station, through a large, mostly empty office-like area, and finally to the holding cells on the back wall. All six would-be prisoners were forced into one of the small cells.

"I'm going to remember this when I'm covering your asses, you fucking bastards!" Lynda shouted through the bars.

"Shut up," the MP Captain said in response. He walked toward a row of large lockers, where he stuffed the team's highly specialized weaponry haphazardly in.

Then, having sufficiently disrespected the team's personal-extensions-of-will, he walked through the office area toward a desk, where he sat down, turned around, and stared back at the six prisoners. Out of boredom, the half dozen other MPs in the room followed suit, occasionally whispering and smiling at each other.

"Fucking pricks," Jake said. "Girls, get us out of here."

"We can't," Ruby said, staring at the locker her Crescent Rose was in. Jake and Lynda blinked, hard.

"At least not yet," Blake whispered.

"What do you mean?' Lynda responded at the same volume.

"Hollin's made a big mistake," Yang said darkly. "We want to make sure he pays for it in full."

"He has no grounds to arrest us," Weiss said. "He's doing it because Blake's a faunus, he hates faunus, and someone probably overheard us talking about Adam's attack on that refugee camp."

" _That's_ what this is about?" Jake demanded.

"Yes, but like we said, he has no grounds," Ruby said.

"He has to report this sort of charge up the chain of command within an hour. After that, he's breaking the law," Weiss said. Then, to Jake and Lynda's blank looks, "It's a _very_ serious charge."

Lynda and Jake both grinned. "So you girls _can_ plan ahead," Lynda said.

"Weiss can," Blake said.

"Why do you know this, again?" Lynda asked.

"I looked this up ages ago," Weiss replied dismissively. "Blake's former-White Fang, and a lot of military leaders are racists. When we started getting sent out to other cities, it was important that we knew how to get out of situations like this."

"Clever," Jake said, nodding his head.

"So now we just wait?" Lynda said, looking up at the digital clock on the wall.

"Now we wait," Yang said grimly, glaring at the MP Captain.

oooooo

"Four… Three… Two… One… and time!" Yang said, looking across at Ruby, the lights above them chasing away the darkness outside. From a hidden pocket inside her dress, Ruby pulled a compact phone. The MPs had patted them down, but this was a very special phone, designed specifically to avoid detection.

Thin, flexible, and with all its circuitry in a line that could easily be mistaken for a thread, it had yet to be found by even the most thorough frisker.

Ruby tapped away at the screen, hoping to avoid the eye of the MP Captain. But it wasn't to be.

"Hey!" the Captain shouted. With that one syllable, the half dozen MPs in the room stood and reached for their weapons. The captain rushed forward, drawing his weapon. "Put that down! Now!"

"Hurry up!" Yang said, glancing over at the guard attempting to unlock the cell. Blake and Weiss moved in front of Jake and Lynda, placing their highly-developed auras between their two crew and the MPs loaded guns.

"Hello, General," Ruby said over the shouting, looking down at the image of General Ironwood twisting in his bed.

" _Ruby?"_ Ironwood blinked hard and focused on his screen. " _What in god's name are you calling me for?! Don't you know what time it is?!"_ General Ironwood's muffled voice said as Yang forcibly kept the cell closed against the increasingly confused captain. Ruby could barely believe the General could see her through his squinting eyes.

" _Put the phone DOWN!"_ one MP shouted.

"Yes, and I'm very sorry to wake you, General," Ruby said, every bit of the remorse she felt in her voice. The man already struggled to sleep, and it was two in the morning in Atlas. "But we've run into a problem."

She twisted the phone awkwardly against her handcuffs to show the bars of the cell and the shouting MPs, struggling against the handcuffs as she did so.

Somewhat more alert, Ironwood said, " _What are you girls doing in a cell, Ruby?_ "

"This is your second warning! Put the phone down! _"_

"Lt. Colonel Hollin hates faunus and found out I used to be a member of the White Fang," Blake said, looking over Ruby's shoulder, ignoring the shouting entirely. "He arrested us and Winter's platoon just over an hour ago."

" _What?_ " General Ironwood said. " _He did_ what _?_ _He had_ orders _to receive you and integrate you into the upcoming assault. I_ personally signed _those orders!_ "

"Apparently he didn't care," Weiss said.

" _I don't believe this_ ," Ironwood said. " _Put… whoever's shouting, on, immediately. Please_."

Ruby stood up, twisted the phone in her hands, and held it up for the Captain being held back by Yang to see.

" _Stand down, Captain_!" Ironwood shouted through the tiny speakers of Ruby's phone. The captain looked up, recognized the Commander of the Atlas Military, and dropped his jaw. He looked around at the six friends in the cell, then back to the phone.

"This is your final— _"_

"Stop!" the Captain shouted. "Shut _up,_ Stein!" He looked back at the phone in disbelief.

" _Listen very carefully, Captain, because your career, and potentially freedom, rides on it,_ " Ironwood said. He'd risen from his bed and seemed to be picking clothes out of his closet. " _You will give me the number of the nearest portable computer or large slate._

" _In roughly five minutes, I'm going to call that number, and then you are going to escort Team RWBY, unbound and fully armed, to wherever the Winter Contingent is being held. You will then hand that computer to Major Winter Schnee, and escort the lot of them to Lt. Colonel Hollin's command tent, at which point you will move aside and stay there._

" _Understood, Captain?"_

"Uh, sir. Yes sir," the Captain replied. The other MPs gathered around the Captain, each one sequentially dropping their jaw.

" _These are your lawful orders, Captain, given to you by the highest authority in the Atlas military,_ " Ironwood said menacingly, ignoring the newcomers. " _If you take and act on any orders that contradict these commands, I will personally preside over your court martial._

" _Am I understood, Captain?_ "

"Sir, yes sir!"

" _Good. Release them now, and return their weapons,_ " Ironwood said, shifting something off-screen. In a gentler tone, " _Ruby, try to keep your team from getting into any more trouble between your cell and Winter. It will make things easier for me_."

"We will do our absolute best, General," Ruby said sincerely. "Again, I'm really sorry we woke you."

" _No, you did the right thing_ ," Ironwood replied tiredly. " _The sooner I knew about this, the better. Things might have gotten truly out of hand, otherwise._ "

oooooo

There was a commotion outside the tent. Winter looked up from her rigid place at the end of her bunk. Lt. Lang and the rest of the platoon followed suit from their respective places. What sounded like dark threats, some startled voices, and a bit of fear filtered through the canvas walls.

Then the flap of the barrack was pulled aside. A skittish-looking captain holding a computer walked toward the back of the barrack. Winter turned to meet him. The captain very studiously stared at a point above her left shoulder, saluted, and presented the laptop.

"Sir!" Winter said, jumping to attention, saluting General Ironwood's face on the screen.

" _Winter_ ," Ironwood said, returning her salute, dressed fully in his uniform. " _I understand you've all been arrested on charges of espionage and sabotage_."

"Yes, sir!" Winter replied, falling into parade rest.

" _I assume you_ reminded _Lt. Colonel Hollin that his orders came from me?_ "

"Yes, sir."

" _And nothing came of it._ "

"No, General."

" _I see,_ " he said. " _Very well, take me to Lt. Colonel Hollin._ "

"Sir!"

Unbidden, her platoon rose. Lt. Lang fell into step beside and behind her as they walked toward the other end of the barrack. When Winter came up level with Ruby, Weiss, and their team, she said, "What took you so long?"

Ruby and Weiss smiled back. "We had to wait an hour."

Winter smirked coldly. " _Very_ clever."

"I thought so, too," Jake said. Winter looked at him briefly but didn't respond.

As they left the barrack, Winter said, "Lieutenant—"

But whatever she was going to say was cut off as Lt. Lang directed the platoon to relieve the guards' weapons and carry them instead. Winter frowned thoughtfully.

When she turned back to Ruby, the girl was smiling at her.

She ignored it and followed the MP Captain to the command tent.

oooooo

"What in the _hell_ is this?!" Hollin demanded as the MP Captain led half of the fully armed Winter Contingent and Team RWBY besides into his previously empty debriefing room.

Hollin stared as Winter walked right past the MP Captain, who was following Ironwood's orders to the letter. "This is _mutiny!"_ Hollin cried, lowering his hand to his pistol, glancing hopelessly at the armed and grim-faced soldiers fanning out around him.

" _No, this is disciplinary action,_ " Ironwood said darkly from the laptop in Winter's hands. Hollin stared horror-struck at the face of his ultimate superior, then at Winter's cold, angry one, then back at Ironwood.

"Sir!" Hollin said, jerking to attention. His was sloppy, even when compared to Weiss's.

" _I gave you orders, Lt. Colonel,_ " Ironwood said. " _I_ personally _gave you orders to receive and accommodate Team RWBY for the duration of their stay. You disobeyed those orders. What is your explanation?_ "

"Sir, Blake Belladonna is a White Fang spy," Hollin replied immediately, lifting his chin. "I received word from one of my lieutenants than she and the Winter Contingent are in league with Adam Sinclair, the leader of the White Fang."

" _Lt. Colonel Hollin, are you suggesting that I am incompetent?_ " Ironwood demanded.

"Sir?" Hollin frowned.

" _If Ms. Belladonna is a White Fang spy, and I personally,_ personally _ordered she and her team be given accommodations, then you must be implying that I did not know what one of your lieutenants easily discovered through a canvas tent wall,_ " Ironwood said. Hollin went stiff.

" _Or are you insinuating that I myself am in league with the White Fang and personally,_ personally _planted a White Fang spy into one of my own bases?_ " he continued.

"No- no, sir," Hollin said. "It's just—"

" _Just_ what _, Lt. Colonel?_ " Ironwood said. His chest full of medals expanded toward the camera. Hollin didn't answer. " _Lt. Colonel Hollin, I am_ fully _aware of Ms. Belladonna's connections to the White Fang. I know every detail of her involvement with their operations. And so do Winter and Weiss, both of them from_ personal _experience. That was a condition I demanded when Ozpin offered Team RWBY's help._ "

"I'm sorry sir, I—"

" _And then there's the matter of your failure to report Team RWBY and the Winter Contingent's arrests,"_ Ironwood cut him off.

"I was in the process of sending the paperwork on—"

" _That_ paperwork _was a charge of_ treason _, Lt. Colonel. Not only did you not send it forward, in the absence of emergency circumstances,_ _you continued to hold_ both _groups that I_ personally _sent to reinforce you._ That _is against the_ law _, Lt. Colonel._ "

Hollin's face was paler than Winter's jacket. He said nothing.

" _Winter?_ "

"Sir?"

" _Record this._ "

"Yes, sir." Pressing several buttons, Winter set the computer to record Ironwood's feed.

"Ready, sir."

" _Good,_ " he said, straightening in whatever chair he was sitting in. " _Begin._ "

Winter pressed a button. Hollin looked at the screen, his face flitting between resignation and terror. " _As General of the Atlas Military, I, General James Ironwood, relieve Lt. Colonel Friedrick Hollin of duty on the Sixth of Fell, 21:56 Atlas Time, effective immediately._ "

Hollin's eyes closed.

Ironwood stared straight at Hollin through the camera. " _He will submit himself to Atlas Military Police custody for holding until he can be transported to Atlas Military Headquarters for his Court Martial, under the charge of Illegal Holding of Suspected Individuals and Willful Disobedience of Orders. Orders issued by_ me personally, _"_ he snarled that last.

Hollin's shoulders sagged. His eyes had opened, but they stared at nothing. Winter idly recognized the horror he must be suffering, seeing his entire life crumble into pieces in front of him, all because of one stupid decision.

But sympathy had never been one of her strongest skills. This was why you didn't make stupid decisions, especially not ones driven by racism.

" _I_ _n the interim, I am putting Acting-Lt. Colonel Winter Schnee in charge of all base operations. Any disobedience of_ her _orders will be considered a direct disobedience of_ mine _, and_ will _be punished accordingly._ "

Winter stared in shock at the computer in her hands.

" _Furthermore, both the Winter Contingent and Team RWBY are present on your base by_ my direct order, _having determined their loyalties_ personally _, and any actions taken in an attempt to impede either group will be subject to a court martial on the charge of Mutiny._

" _That is all,_ " Ironwood said finally. Winter pressed a key to stop recording. " _Captain!_ " He said.

"Sir!" The MP Captain replied.

" _Escort Lt. Colonel Hollin to a holding cell. If anyone attempts to resist, immediately contact the Winter Contingent so they can address the situation._ "

"Sir, yes sir!"

As the man led the shell-shocked Hollin out of the tent, Winter spoke, turning the computer to face her, "With all due respect, General, I can barely lead a platoon. We're preparing for a major offensive into Grimm territory, and I do not think it's wise to try and learn on the go."

" _Then lean on the people below you until you know what you need,_ " Ironwood said. " _You have three more weeks. I do not have any officers to spare, Winter; not ones familiar with the base and its soldiers; not ones I trust._ "

"But I'm not—"

"We are," Weiss chimed in.

"We've got your back, Winter," Ruby said.

"It'll be easier for us to mingle anyway," Yang said.

"And you'll always have us, sir," Lt. Lang said. The rest of the platoon nodded once in agreement.

" _See?_ " Ironwood said, while Winter tried to process this outpouring of support. " _I expect you to succeed, Winter._

" _Now,_ " Ironwood said, " _I'm exhausted, so I'm going back to sleep. I'll check in with you again tomorrow, but after that I expect you to address your own concerns._ "

"Sir, yes sir," Winter said, saluting. Ironwood quickly returned it, then shut off his screen.

Winter took a deep, deep breath. Then, with effort, she said, "Lieutenant?"

"I advise getting the rest of Hollin's officers together first," Lt. Lang said, his voice that of a sergeant.

"Agreed," Winter said. "Lieutenant, I…"

"Yes, sir," Lt. Lang said. "I'll answer any of them."

"…Thank you, Lieutenant," Winter said.

Winter caught a glimpse of her sister and her teammate smiling at each other.


	7. Leadership Functions

After Winter had met with the base's company commanders in order to relay General Ironwood's orders, it was just her, her platoon, and Team RWBY left in the tent-equivalent of a war room. Thankfully, Jake and Lynda had been convinced to retire to their own bunks prior to the meeting.

Looking down at her pale hands on the long table in the middle of the room, Winter racked her brains for some sort of insight. By all accounts, any one of the other officers were better suited to be base commander than her. Yet General Ironwood had placed her in charge, not any of them, and he was relying on her to complete the offensive successfully.

With no other recourse, she said, "Lieutenant, insights?"

"Sir," Lt. Lang said, "They all seem to consider your promotion undeserved."

Winter scowled down at the table, but she appreciated the candor of his reply. "Continue."

"Despite that, they're open to your leadership, given the fact that the order came directly from General Ironwood," Lang said. "That is an opportunity to assert that leadership before resentment sets in."

"Resentment?" Winter said, confused. "They've received their orders; why should it matter whether they received the promotion or not?"

"They aren't SpecFor, sir," Lang said. At Winter's interrogating stare, he continued. "Any of us," he indicated the rest of the platoon, "would follow a talking _squirrel_ into battle if he knew what he was doing." Winter actually smiled at the analogy. "But they're just regular army," Lang continued. "They need to really _know_ who's in charge. So for them, an officer promoted over themselves needs to be the obvious choice. Anything less and resentment will set in."

Winter scowled. "Threat vectors?" she said, falling back on the familiar.

"Base morale," Lang said. "The same rule applies to every soldier on the base."

"And no offense, sis," Weiss said, "But you haven't exactly made a good impression so far."

"Why?" Winter demanded.

"You're a perfectionist," Ruby replied. "And you applied that to your squirrel-following platoon."

"They could handle that," Yang said, nodding at the silent Lt. Lang. "But do you really think Gomez or that Jenners kid can?"

"If they aren't good enough, then they need to _become_ good enough!" Winter said.

"Except you need dedication to do that," Ruby said. "And I don't think anyoneon this base _has_ that kind of dedication."

"They all see you as a pushy, cold, probably even heartless perfectionist," Blake said. "I'm willing to bet, and Lt. Lang, correct me if I'm wrong, that the average soldier won't want to serve under someone like that."

Winter looked over at Lt. Lang. He cleared his throat. That was all the answer she needed.

"What, then, should I do?" She asked the room at large.

"Lower your standards, for starters," Lt. Lang replied.

Winter turned on him the sort of scathing glare that would blister steel. He didn't flinch.

"They just need to be 'good enough,'" Lang said before she could respond. "That can be better than they are now, but they will never be as good as we are."

"But," Weiss interrupted, taking the brunt of her sister's glare away from Lang, "since that's not going to get fixed in three weeks, the more important question is this: What can we do to paint you in a better light?"

"What's the core issue?" Winter asked. Breaking things down to their core and moving outward had always served her well.

"They think you're heartless," Blake replied. "A reasonable, if incorrect, assumption."

"Why reasonable?" Winter demanded.

"That's the fourth time I've seen you smile in nearly a year of serving with you," Lt. Lang said.

Winter frowned.

"So we correct that," Yang said.

"How do we correct that?" Blake asked.

"No idea," Ruby said. "It's sort of something you just glean."

"We have a day," Lt. Lang said, "maybe two before the shock wears off."

"Not a lot of time," Weiss said.

Winter's brain was churning, looking back for some example of what the others would no doubt call 'humanity.' Though she searched and searched, her thoughts kept coming back to one terrifying day.

"I may have a solution to this problem," Winter said, interrupting the debate continuing without her. "First, let's address the second core issue."

They all looked at her. "Team RWBY."

Lt. Lang inhaled, nodding his head.

"What about us?" Ruby asked.

"General Ironwood singled you out personally in his orders," Winter said. "How do we justify that?"

The four Huntresses looked at each other. "Live demonstration?"

"How about a recorded one?" Winter said.

"Colonel, are you suggesting _declassifying_ information?" Lt. Lang said shrewdly.

Winter looked over at him with a tiny smirk. "Yes."

Weiss looked around at her teammates. "We're missing something."

"Care to fill us in?" Yang asked.

Winter simply smiled.

oooooo

" _Furthermore, both the Winter Contingent and Team RWBY are present on your base by my direct order, having determined their loyalties_ personally _, and any actions taken in an attempt to impede either group will be subject to a court martial on the charge of Mutiny._

" _That is all,"_ General Ironwood's electronically enlarged face finished to the assembled base personnel. All four companies stood at parade rest in front of the large screen erected on one end of the parade square.

The screen switched from the feed of General Ironwood to the stark-white Atlas Marine Corps logo revolving slowly against a dark blue background.

From where Jenners stood with his platoon near the base of the screen, he could see Colonel Schnee's new rank insignia. She hadn't changed out of her Specialist uniform, but the new insignia shone in the light coming off the screen, clearly visible on the collar of her white leather jacket.

Just behind her was Team RWBY and Colonel Schnee's lieutenant. Team RWBY were looking more or less professional, or at least as professional as four young women in a wide variety of bright-colored clothing could look. They weren't fidgeting at least.

Jenners, Gomez, and the Sarge were still reeling from the rapid imprisonment and equally rapid emancipation of the previous night, even after having a full eight hours to sleep it off.

Colonel Schnee had ordered them not to talk about it to the rest of the platoon, ensuring that all three of them would die horribly before they said a word. This new information from General Ironwood _(the General Ironwood!)_ just cemented that.

With Gomez standing just as rod-straight as he was and the Sarge a few feet in front of them, Jenners watched the Colonel with the bit firmly in his teeth. As he did, the Colonel swept her gaze imperiously over the battalion, silencing the quiet hum of whispers.

Then she spoke. "As you've just heard," she began, her voice magnified and piped out of the massive speakers erected on either side of the screen, "I have been placed in command of this base, by the highest authority." She swept the crowd again. "However," her eyes rested for a fraction of a second on Jenners, Gomez, and the Sarge, causing Gomez to shiver next to him, "I know that very few of you know anything more than hearsay about myself or my platoon."

Jenners silently squashed the desire to glance around at the shifting and whispering forms of the rest of his platoon. Eyes front and center, because he knew what the Colonel was capable of.

"So," she continued, her voice ringing out loudly, "Allow me to introduce myself." She looked over the battalion again. "I am Lt. Colonel Winter Schnee, a Specialist in the Special Forces branch of the Atlas military. I have fought in every major engagement the Atlas military has deployed to, initially alone but later joined by 5th Platoon, A Company, 3rd Battalion Special Forces."

Jenners was willing to bet that he, Gomez, and the Sarge were the only ones that noticed the significance of the Colonel's use of the word 'joined.'

The Colonel continued. "Team RWBY, on the other hand," the Colonel waved a hand behind her at her the four Huntresses, "has served in every major engagement fought on the surface of Remnant. My own sister, Weiss Schnee, has been a critical part of that team's many successes."

Jenners saw Weiss stand up even straighter.

"And they _have_ been successful," the Colonel said. "General Ironwood, our ultimate superior, singled them out precisely because of their standing across the globe, and in particular the country of Atlas."

Jenners could pretty much feel the entire rest of the battalion look back at the four women. The hum of whispers returned, this time with a distinct note of disbelief in it.

Apparently the Colonel caught it too. "You doubt that statement," she said, her eyes once again lingering on Jenners and the other two, "Perhaps you even doubt my own qualifications."

Jenners desperately wanted to glance around at the other soldiers. Anyone that doubted that were going to be in for a surprise, if his guess was correct.

"Given these, admittedly legitimate, doubts," she continued, "I have decided to declassify one of the missions I conducted alongside Team RWBY." She paused for a long moment, and Jenners could hear the menace in the silence. "I expect all of you to have no further doubts at the end of this recording."

Yep, he'd been right.

On cue, the massive screen changed. The revolving logo was replaced by footage taken by what looked like one of the Specialist Imaging Nano Clouds (SINC); a million tiny sensors floating around that, taken together, formed a single recording.

This one showed the Colonel hunkered down in a small dugout in the middle of a plain, bright daylight illuminating everything around them. The footage from high above them showed thousands of Grimm, most of them gnawing on droid parts or, in many places, actual soldiers. It looked like there'd been a battle, and that the Colonel and the other soldiers in the dugout were all that were left.

In the bottom-left corner was a timestamp, steadily ticking away. By its time, nothing happened for close to two minutes. Then the Colonel and what looked like her platoon looked sharply at the sky. A few more seconds and then, out of nowhere, Ruby was crouched in the middle of the dugout. A fraction of a second later, so was the rest of her team. The battalion stirred as they realized that the four women had just fallen from the sky.

Strangely, Jenners didn't have any trouble believing what he'd just seen.

The four of them seemed to argue with the Colonel and her platoon, but there was strangely no sound. Jenners figured they were discussing something classified.

The recording abruptly sped up, until the bright sunlight was replaced with near-pitch darkness. The only thing visible was the Colonel's white leather jacket.

The recording switched to night vision. Jenners watched as Team RWBY moved around quietly, thousands of Grimm still wandering around on all sides of the dugout. Then his eyes widened on their own as he watched the four women stand up in the dugout, silently climb over the lip of it, and begin running, as a four-person chain, through the darkness.

At this point, the recordings split into two; one for the Colonel and the other for Team RWBY. The two of them time-lapsed again, with Team RWBY staying motionless on the top of a small hill overlooking a massive city. One Jenners, and apparently many others, recognized as Gleam City.

It had been overrun by Grimm over a year ago, but the military had managed to retake it and it was now a staging ground. In fact, it was the staging ground for the upcoming offensive, and every single soldier present, including Jenners, had passed through it to get where they were standing.

As he watched, the sun rose in the recordings and illuminated a city teeming with Grimm. Jenners could just hear the sound of distant Grimm while the footage played in real time. His heart began to race. Were they really about to watch the retaking of Gleam City?

The Colonel and her platoon stayed hunkered down in their dugout but, as the recording sped up again and the sound went away again, Team RWBY headed toward the city.

Then they did something crazy. " _No fucking way…"_ Gomez whispered beside him. Jenners had known that the four women of Team RWBY were sort of crazy, but wildly opening fire on a city packed with Grimm was, well, way beyond that.

The Colonel and the others in the dugout looked up at this, apparently hearing gunfire, but otherwise didn't react. Was this the _plan?_

The footage sped up again to the point that it was hard to tell what was going on. The low hum of whispering became louder as the battalion watched Team RWBY flitting wildly across rooftops, opening fire on every Grimm in sight.

Eventually, there were so many Grimm that they practically coated the walls of the buildings. Yet as Jenners watched in amazement, Team RWBY killed, fought through, or avoided all of them. _There's no way they can kill them all,_ Jenners thought.

Then the Sarge whispered in awe from in front of him. "It's a _rescue_ mission…"

Jenners looked back at the Colonel's feed and saw the thousands of Grimm that had surrounded them sprinting toward the noise and chaos in the city, steadily emptying the plains where the Colonel and her platoon were trapped.

" _No way…"_

But apparently it was, because Team RWBY didn't seem to be trying to kill the hordes of Grimm chasing them around a massive park. They were just providing a diversion.

Then the footage slowed. Eventually, it reached normal speed, and the recorded sound of rapid gunshots finally boomed over the battalion.

"… _I think we should drop them now!"_ Jenners heard Weiss' voice say as she danced above a clutch of Grimm.

" _Okay! Begin Operation: Lose Your Marbles!"_

 _Seriously?_ Jenners thought as he shook his head. Then he saw all four Huntresses dropping dozens of small balls down amongst the Grimm. He snorted softly. _Of course they'd call it that._

On the Colonel's feed, the Colonel was propped up on the edge of the dugout, binoculars glued to her face. She'd been like that for most of the recording.

At first Jenners assumed had she was making sure Team RWBY were doing things correctly. But just then, something occurred to him, and he could not believe it hadn't until that moment.

Weiss was her _sister._ To the best of his knowledge, her _only_ sister. _She must have been going out of her mind watching this through those binoculars,_ Jenners thought. He looked over at the present-day Colonel and saw her pointedly ignoring the images on the screen.

Then a massive rumble poured out of the speakers. At first, Jenners thought it was some sort of feedback. Not until he heard the faint sound of continuing gunfire did he realize that it wasn't.

He looked rapidly between the two recordings. In Team RWBY's, Grimm scattered to the edges of the park, dividing their attention between getting out of the way of what Jenners could now see was churning earth and continuing their pursuit of Team RWBY.

In the Colonel's, Jenners watched as the Colonel rushed to shuck her jacket and check her weapons. _What...?_

A massive tentacle surged out of the churning dirt of the park. It was followed by several others. Then a Grimm larger than any Jenners had ever seen rose to the surface. Its massive body took up most of the park, its white armor covering every part of it.

Jenners jaw dropped. It was a Kraken. _They're supposed to be a myth!_

" _Son of a shit!"_ Gomez said beside him. Good to know he wasn't the only person stunned by the Kraken's size.

Team RWBY's tactics changed. They stopped focusing on the little Grimm like Deathstalkers and Giant Nevermores and instead devoted their attention to the colossal new arrival. They shot at its tentacles, but Jenners couldn't see much point. They didn't seem to be doing any damage.

Then he noticed the Colonel's feed had changed. She was no longer in the dugout but instead rushing through the streets of the city, flowing through Grimm like a deadly river, leaving behind body after body.

He, Gomez, and the Sarge had all watched the Colonel fight against Team RWBY for close to a month. Despite how good he knew she was, it was still shocking to see her move so easily through the Grimm, especially because it was just her.

The two feeds continued to move in real time, the sounds of gunfire and slashing swords still pouring out of the speakers.

Because of this, he actually heard the Colonel cry out as she stared up at Team RWBY.

" _WEISS!_ _WEISS!"_

There were some sounds that physically hurt to hear. Nails on a chalk board, screaming children, tearing metal.

For Jenners, the sound of the Colonel's voice as she screamed her sister's name was by far the worst.

The battalion all around him stilled. Even Gomez stopped moving. When Jenners looked over at the Colonel, her eyes were closed, her face an almost imperceptible grimace.

It was almost a minute before Jenners looked back at Team RWBY's recording. He was stunned by what he saw. A crack was forming in the top of the massive Grimm. He could hear a whistle of air, and then the rumbling grew louder.

Then the sound suddenly went quiet, until Jenners could barely hear the gunfire. He only had a few seconds to see the crack widen into a massive mouth and wonder if there had been some sort of glitch in the speakers when the monster roared. It was so loud that, even with the volume turned down as low as it was, he had to cover his ears against it.

Team RWBY's recording lost all focus as the SINC was scattered by the roar. Jenners barely caught what happened next on the Colonel's recording.

Team RWBY fell into the monster's mouth and it closed behind them.

" _NOOOOOOO!"_

Jenners winced. He'd been wrong: _that_ was the most painful sound a person could hear. It was the sound of raw, bloody agony condensed into a single vicious scream.

He immediately looked back at present-day Colonel Schnee. Her head was bowed, her eyes screwed shut, her mouth a thin line.

He looked back at the recording. Saw the Colonel fall to her knees. Watched her ignore the approaching Grimm.

A bright light. The sound of a thousand explosions. Collision with a wall. Grating dirt. Pained squealing.

Gunshots.

Team RWBY's SINC rejoined its charges as they burst forcefully from the sides of the monolithic Kraken. Jenners watched in amazement as the creature's massive tentacles fell limply to the ground, its squealing silenced.

His jaw dropped again when he heard the Huntresses calling out what ice cream they wanted Ruby to buy them because she'd been the last one out. As if killing something like that from the inside was somehow _normal_.

Jenners shook his head in disbelief. _They fell in on_ purpose _._ _They are_ crazy!

Based on the tone of several of the voices around him, at least a few other people had come to the same conclusion.

But they _still_ weren't done. After the four of them had regrouped, all of the Grimm that survived the explosions rushed to the sound of Team RWBY fighting. Hundreds of them, large and small. The four of them fought like heroes, and just when Jenners was certain, despite evidence to the contrary standing barely a hundred feet away, that they were going to be overrun, the four women halted the Grimm and kept them there.

As smooth as the Colonel had looked rushing through the city streets, she didn't hold a candle to the way Team RWBY fought against those Grimm. It was like they could read each other's minds. The longer he watched, the less he saw them as four people. They were one machine, each part working perfectly with all the others; four distinct but complementary pieces of a single whole.

He'd never seen anything like it.

While this was happening, the Colonel was showing her own skill, fighting to where the other four were. Dozens of Grimm, from beowulves on up to deathstalkers, were cut down by her sword as she glided through them to get to Team RWBY.

If anything, she fought even better than she had earlier. Even though he'd watched her and Team RWBY fight for weeks, it felt like it was the first time he'd seen them ever drawn their weapons.

Jenners was fully expecting the five of them to empty the entire city on their own when Team RWBY's shuttle arrived to 'save' them. A few minutes of gunfire from the shuttle and the Colonel's platoon later and the surviving Grimm scattered into the shadows of the crumbling city.

The two feeds shut off, the revolving logo returned. A deep silence followed. Jenners assumed that everyone else was as stunned as he was. He'd always thought an army had retaken Gleam City, not four Huntresses and a Specialist.

Then the Colonel spoke.

"I think," she began, "that it is obvious now why General Ironwood placed me in command, and why he felt the need to single out Team RWBY in his orders."

The whole battalion remained utterly silent.

"So let me _specify_ those orders," she continued into the silence. "Team RWBY will be accommodated according to their needs and without obstruction or hesitation. If they ask for something, you will provide it. If it's something that by all other rights would be yours, _you will provide it._ They are volunteers; _foreign_ support to _our_ war effort. You will treat them as the freely given aid they are."

She swept her gaze over the soldiers again, but Jenners felt she was wasting her time. After what they'd all just seen, he didn't think anyone would question that order.

"Seriously though, guys," Yang said from behind the Colonel, "we've got everything we need already."

"Except more fish," Blake interjected.

"Except more fish," Yang amended.

"But not too much," Ruby said.

While it didn't surprise Jenners in the slightest, he could tell the people around him were utterly stunned by this mundane, even playful exchange. He saw the Colonel look back and glare at them, while Weiss rolled her eyes.

Turning back to the battalion, the Colonel said, "They are, however… _unusual_ , despite their clear effectiveness." She paused. "Bear that in mind."

Another pause. "That is the extent of your new orders. You are dismissed."

Jenners looked over at Gomez. She looked back with what he assumed was the same look he had on his face.

As their lieutenant ordered them back to the barracks, the Sarge and Gomez met his eye. "Soooo," Gomez began as the Sarge moved off and the two of them fell in with the rest of the platoon, "we're never going to piss them off again, right?"

Jenners smiled shakily. "What do you mean 'we'?"

His smile lost its shakiness as Gomez' face fell.

oooooo

"Good work with the demonstration," Winter said curtly as she watched the soldiers leave.

"Thank you ma'am," Samuels replied, nodding once as Winter and the others moved off toward the command tents. "Though it wasn't really difficult."

"All the same," Winter said. She tilted her chin at Lt. Lang, who had assumed his place to her left and behind her. "Lieutenant, please gather the company commanders once they've finished seeing to their soldiers and have them report to the war tent. I want to see how competent they are."

"Combat inspections, ma'am?" Lang asked.

"Precisely," Winter replied. Before he could ask, she continued, "I'll have drafts of potential scenarios completed before you return."

"Yes, ma'am," Lang replied, falling silent again.

"Samuels, return to the platoon," Winter said.

"Yes, ma'am," Samuels said, breaking off toward their barrack.

In the same voice, Winter said, "Weiss—"

"Ruby," her sister said sternly.

Still leading the way to the tent, Winter turned to look at her sister. "…Fine. _Ruby,_ please start _mingling._ I would like to know the temperature of opinions regarding my command."

"Sure thing, Winter," Ruby replied. "We'll lay on the charm, too. It'll make you look better." Winter narrowed her eyes. Ruby smiled, "Friendly by association. If the soldiers start to like us, and they see us with you, you can't be all that bad, can you?"

Sound reasoning, if patronizing. "Ordinarily I would take offense at that," Winter said, scowling darkly. "However, I… _am_ out of my depth. If you think it will help, then… thank you."

"Don't mention it," Ruby replied dismissively.

The four friends, led by Ruby, broke off to follow Samuels. It took a moment before Winter realized they were probably going to pick up their resident guides. A smart decision.

Reaching the command tent, Winter strode quickly through the empty adjoining office space and into her bare-walled office. Based on the scuff marks and deep scratches, Hollin had kept the sturdy wood desk that sat in the center of the office for a number of years.

Winter would just as soon get rid of it. She did everything she needed to on her scroll, which could be accessed just as easily in mid-air as sitting on a dirt floor.

Lt. Lang had stayed in the adjoining office space. Considering her lack of any appropriate command structure, Lang, and in fact her entire platoon, had taken to picking up what slack they could, and it had only been a day and a half.

Winter wondered at that.

oooooo

A short while later, Lang left the tent to fetch the company commanders. Winter spent the interim finishing up loose drafts of combat inspection simulations based on what little she'd gleaned of each company from the files she'd spent most of the previous night skimming through.

The drafts were _very_ rough, but hopefully Lt. Lang and her sergeants could clean them up. She tried to avoid thinking about how many things she was expected to learn in the next three weeks.

Airborne and foot-soldier deployments, supply chain structuring and deployment, medical support coordination…

Winter shook her head, hard.

Just then, the sound of boots crunching on dirt became audible. Winter put her scroll back in her pocket and strode to the war tent. When she arrived, the other officers were already present, arrayed all on one side of the table in the middle of the tent. As company commanders, each one held the rank of Major. Placed in charge of four or five platoons, these officers were her direct subordinates.

When they saw her, they snapped to attention and saluted.

In a swift, graceful, and perfectly precise movement she saluted them back. There were chairs in the tent, but she didn't use one. The other officers followed her lead and remained on their feet. Lt. Lang took his position behind her, closer than usual due to the somewhat small size of the tent.

The table itself had a large display built into its surface, turning it into a dynamic planning tool, suited perfectly for a base such as… hers.

If there was such a thing as mental vertigo, she felt she'd soon take it for reality at the rate she was experiencing it.

"Considering the fact that until yesterday I had no real contact with any of your companies," Winter began bluntly, "I need a tangible impression of their capabilities going forward, as quickly as possible; written reports do not suffice."

The officers shifted slightly in their parade rest. Winter tried not to reflect on how unusual it was for officers at their level to act so strictly around what was ultimately just an officer a single rank above them.

"As a result, your companies will conduct a series of combat inspections," Winter continued. "These will be simulated combat scenarios inspected by me or a member of my platoon."

"Um, ma'am?" One major said.

Winter narrowed her eyes at him. Lt. Lang tapped the side of her foot with his. "Yes?" She replied finally.

"Precisely what form will these _inspections_ take?" the major replied.

Winter paused. Before Lt. Lang could tap her foot again, she said, "Similar to what my platoon has conducted several times over the last month. Tests of coordination, efficiency, and effectiveness.

"They will be run all the way from the squad-level to the company one," she continued. "I need to know what I'm commanding."

There was a pause, then another major asked, her voice thick with trepidation, "Ma'am, do you expect to complete these inspections by the time the other bases are ready to deploy?"

"I expect them to be completed by the end of the week," Winter replied coldly.

"That's not possible," the woman replied, scowling. The other officers' postures slackened slightly.

"Yes it is," Winter said. "My platoon will coordinate the construction of the scenario environments as well as the implementation of the scenarios."

"But ma'am, you only have one officer!" a third major said.

"Your point?" Winter replied. "Every single private in my platoon is capable of that task. I have personally made sure of that."

"But ma'am—"

"These are your orders, majors," Winter stated bluntly. Lang was tapping her foot repeatedly, but she could sense he hadn't visibly moved since the meeting had started. "Tomorrow, you will accept the scenarios Lt. Lang constructs for you based on each of your companies' theoretical capabilities. My platoon, down to the last private, will coordinate with you, your junior officers, and your enlisted to make sure the process moves as smoothly and as quickly as possible. They will also inspect these scenarios when I myself cannot.

"You will follow any order any member of my platoon gives you regarding these inspections without argument," she continued. "If you do that, if you rely on my platoon for coordination, then these scenarios _will_ be completed within the week."

"That is simply not enough time to prepare, ma'am!"

"That is the point, major," Winter replied. "Consider it a surprise inspection. I want to know what they are capable of, as they are rightnow _._ "

The four majors visibly fought to not contradict her. Lt. Lang tapped her foot, hard.

"Fine," she said impatiently. " _Why_ isn't it possible?"

"We do not have the materials to construct enough locations to run enough concurrent drills to satisfy those orders, ma'am," one major said.

"Look around, major," Winter said, somehow succeeding in not sounding entirely condescending. "There are dozens of local environments to run them in; the only construction involved will be separators between drill locations."

"But the sheer number of drills—"

"Is irrelevant when each member of my platoon inspects them and we make efficient use of the local environment. As I said, I trust every member of my platoon to monitor every drill to my satisfaction." With a moment's reflection, Winter felt no small surprise at the fact that she genuinely believed what she'd just said.

"What about the risks of injury?" one major asked.

"If you and your troops follow my platoon's instructions to the letter the first time, and each of them avoids the mundane dangers of standing on two feet, there shouldn't be any. My soldiers will make sure that everyone knows exactly what they're supposed to do, so as long as they listen, there should be no issue."

"You expect us to follow the orders of _enlisted_ soldiers?"

"Yes."

"Why should we?"

"Because they're _my_ enlisted."

That stalled the questions for a long moment. Then, "Assuming this were to work," one of the officers said skeptically, "what then? Are you going to try and train us up to _your_ standards in the last two weeks?"

Winter paused. Her first instinct was to say 'yes,' but Lt. Lang and Team RWBY were right; she had to lower her standards. It simply wasn't feasible to train them all to her satisfaction. "No," she said finally. "I will not. I will single out those groups that need the most correction and shore up those that don't, but the bulk of our time will be spent getting ready to mobilize. In two weeks' time, I want this base ready to go on the offensive at a moment's notice. Hollin has already kept you mostly prepared for that, so any extra time will be spent staying that way."

The majors were silent.

"One week is very little time," a major said half-heartedly.

"Then we need to get started as soon as possible," Winter said impatiently.

The four officers stood straighter. "Yes, ma'am," one said, his voice sounding resigned.

"Good," Winter said. "Prepare your companies. These will all be blank-firing exercises." The majors looked up in alarm. "Each soldier needs to ready their weapon, but all ammunition will be issued by whichever member of my platoon is in charge of a given group. _All_ ammunition, majors. I don't want a single round to touch the hands of anyone but my people on its way from the quartermaster to your soldiers. They've already started loading magazines, in fact."

The majors nodded, their faces thoughtful.

"You're dismissed," Winter said.

After all four had left and a minute had passed, Winter said, "Well?"

"Somewhat dicey in the middle, ma'am, but I think they're receptive to it at the very least," Lt. Lang replied.

"Agreed," Winter said. "I sent my drafts to your scroll."

"I'll make sure to go over them with our sergeants then pass them on to the commanders once they've addressed their troops."

"Good," Winter replied. "I'll be here trying to catch up."

"Sergeant Glen has some logistics experience."

Winter looked over at Lt. Lang. "That's right," she said.

"I'll send her here to help."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Winter said.

"You're welcome, ma'am," he replied. Then, knowing he was dismissed, he left the tent to carry out her orders.


	8. Mingling and Reading

"Mind if we join you?" Ruby asked.

The half dozen soldiers sitting at the mostly empty table in the mess hall stared up at her and her teammate in horror.

"Come on, guys, relax," Gomez said beside Ruby. "Just here to eat some food."

The entire mess hall stank more of sweat than food and many of the soldiers were still panting from their "combat inspections."

One woman swallowed. "Uh," she began, "Sure… Sure, you can join us."

"Excellent," Weiss said impatiently. She clattered her tray of food down quickly, sat just as quickly, and, as primly as was possible, began wolfing down her food.

Ruby sat down, with Gomez and Weiss on either side of her. "You know, I don't know what you guys are complaining about, Gomez."

"What do you mean?" Gomez replied. After getting over the shock of seeing the footage of Team RWBY taking out a Kraken, then the forced enlistment into helping Ruby and Weiss "mingle," Gomez had realized the whole situation would probably help her get her sergeant's hook, assuming she played it right.

And she did take some off-color pleasure in the other soldiers' reactions.

"The food," Ruby said, "It's actually pretty good. I really like their chicken."

"That's not real chicken," one of the soldiers said before he could stop himself.

"Eh," Ruby said, smirking slightly, "Same difference."

 _Did she?_ Gomez wondered.

"What about the sausage?" Weiss asked, concerned. There was sausage on her fork.

The others paused, then, "It's real," one woman said. "What it's made of, though, that's something else."

 _She did,_ Gomez thought, amazed. _Soldiers cannot_ resist _bitching about the food._

"We've got a pool going," another soldier said hesitantly, "for anyone who can figure out what's in it."

"Really?" Weiss said. "How high is it?"

Gomez fought the urge to shake her head.

"…Pretty high," the first woman said.

"We should have Blake try and figure it out," Ruby said. "I could use a few new dresses."

"Or you _could_ just stop ruining them all the time," Weiss said, irritated.

"But… but…" Ruby said pitifully.

"Ugh," Weiss said, rolling her eyes, "You're hopeless."

"So how are your guys' inspections going?" Gomez asked. By this point most of the tables around them were listening, a lot of them not even bothering to hide it.

"Pretty hard," one soldier replied without thinking. The other five glared at him. He ducked his head; actually _ducked_ his head.

Gomez smiled sympathetically. "We just had our first one a few hours ago." Ruby and Weiss just so happened to take two large bites of food at that very moment.

Swallowing, Ruby asked innocently, "Which site did you guys do yours in?"

They paused. "The, uh, boulder field."

Ruby and Weiss hissed sympathetically, "That's rough," Ruby said.

Weiss rolled her eyes, "Ugh!" She said. "You are _terrible!"_

Ruby smiled wide, then winked at one of the soldiers. Catching on, all six smiled back, and a couple even laughed.

"We did ours in the woods," Gomez said.

"Eeugh," a soldier from another table shivered. "Too claustrophobic."

"Tell me about it," Gomez said, turning to face him. "Sight lines were shit, and the canopies!"

"I did mine there too," another soldier piped in from behind them. "Was that you on the south end?"

"Yeah!"

"You guys sounded like shit," she said. "Did you guys come back with _any_ ammo?"

Gomez bristled. "'Like shit,' huh? Well, at least we lasted against each other; sounded like half of your lot couldn't fight a roving pack of school children, they went down so fast."

"Shut up," the woman replied, "you don't know what you're talking about."

"Haha, I don't, huh?" Gomez said, sensing weakness, "You must have—"

"Now, now, children," Weiss interrupted seriously. "I think we all know who really won that engagement."

She paused, waiting for their attention. "The talking squirrel."

Ruby choked on her drink and Gomez hit her hard in the back to help her stop coughing. The other soldiers looked very confused.

Coughing one last time, Ruby said, "Hrm, sorry. Inside joke."

Weiss smiled. "A new one, but that one's going to stick around, I think."

One of the soldiers finally worked up the courage. "So, uh, you two, you've, uh, seen a lot of fighting, eh?"

"Us?" Ruby said, swallowing a mouthful of imitation cabbage. "Yeah, a fair bit."

"Where?" she pressed.

"Pretty much everywhere," Weiss replied. "Vacuo is _much_ too hot for my tastes…"

"…and Atlas is too cold for mine," Ruby interjected, "But we all make sacrifices."

That drew a few chuckles.

"But by far my least favorite place was Mistral," Weiss continued as if her teammate hadn't interrupted. "Slimy, stinky, and just generally filthy, and that's just the people."

"But we all make sacrifices." Ruby repeated.

Weiss sighed. "Yes, we all make sacrifices."

By this point, most of the mess hall had turned to listen. Gomez felt a little overwhelmed by it all, but the two Huntresses seemed perfectly at ease.

"That, uh, Kraken thing," another began, "That the first one you've taken down?"

Weiss snorted. She looked at Ruby with irritation. "No, unfortunately."

"How'd you learn to do that, then?" she asked.

"Truthfully?" Weiss said. "Ruby over here was careless and fell into the first one we ran into, and, like complete morons, the rest of us went in after her."

"Trial by fire, really," Ruby said, swallowing a mouthful of juice.

"More like 'trial by black slime,'" Weiss said, rolling her eyes. "And you wonder why she needs new dresses on a regular basis."

Several of the soldiers around them laughed.

"Well what you did was fucking impressive as hell," a somewhat short soldier said. "Thing looked like it couldn't _be_ taken down. Then the fight after? Fucking impressive."

A murmur of general agreement went around the hall.

"Thanks," Ruby said. "We've worked pretty hard at it."

A bell, like one you'd find in a school, that was hanging from one support of the mess hall rang loudly, and kept ringing for a good thirty seconds, forcing every soldier present to wince. Then, almost as single unit, they crammed their faces with as much food as they could, then headed to the tray drop-off, followed closely by Ruby, Weiss and finally Gomez.

A solid day's work, Gomez supposed. These Huntresses were really, really weird.

oooooo

"How did it go with the soldiers?" Winter asked, concerned. They were now two days into her inspections. The squad-level inspections had been largely completed the first day, the platoon-level ones started that day and due to complete the day after that, and the company-level engagements would take the rest of the week.

Pitting two companies against each other would take at least two days to observe what she needed to know, then pitting a pair of companies against another would take another three. Her subordinates said it was impossible. Winter, her platoon, and Team RWBY had been busy in all their off hours getting things organized for those larger inspections, setting it up so that the soldiers would need to simply step into place and the inspection could get under way.

But her attitude about the enormity of her new authority and the responsibility it walked in lock-step with had begun to shift as the results of these initial inspections came in. It was not a nice shift.

"Pretty well," Ms. Xiao Long replied, ignorant of her anxieties. "Took our groups a while to get over having Blake there, but they came around eventually."

"And Richard told me most of the people he's talked to are too tired to complain about you," Ms. Belladonna said.

"Yeah, Gomez said the same thing," Ms. Rose said.

"Some of the junior officers have been huddling together, though," Weiss said, taking a bite of her biscuit.

"You want to address that last, ma'am," Lt. Lang said. "Junior officers set the tone of the platoon."

"I'll do a walk-about," Winter said hesitantly. "Maybe I can reduce those mutterings."

"So when the junior officers stop complaining to each other," Ms. Rose said, "and the bigger tests start up, it shouldn't be long till everyone's pretty much on the same page as you."

"Then we can _finally_ start getting ready to attack," Ms. Xiao Long said. "This whole 'wait a couple months to attack' thing is really not my definition of fun."

"It's not supposed to _be_ fun," Winter growled. "We are _waiting_ for our sister bases to complete their own preparations and then we are _going on the offensive_ against hundreds of thousands of Grimm! This isn't a game, dammit!"

"Woah, Winter!" Ms. Xiao Long said. She put her hands up in front of her, her face shocked. "I get it, ok? Same page, here."

"Winter, what's wrong?" Ms. Rose asked. She sounded sincere enough. Winter decided to answer.

"Starting in roughly three weeks, dozens if not hundreds of these people," she swept one hand at the base at large, "are going to die because nobody bothered to train them properly, and _I'm_ going to get stuck with the guilt! And there is nothing _fun_ about that. Nothing at all."

She glared at Ms. Xiao Long. The blonde woman hung her head. "I'm sorry, Winter," she said, her voice more serious and more contrite than Winter had ever heard it. "That was stupid."

"Really stupid," Weiss said coldly.

Winter continued to glare at Ms. Xiao Long. Finally, she said, "For now, I need to focus on analyzing these inspection results. You are all dismissed."

She didn't have that authority over Team RWBY, but their leader hurried them all out regardless. As Lt. Lang passed on his way back from grabbing his coat, he paused. Then he rested one hand on Winter's shoulder, squeezed lightly, and then proceeded to leave the room.

She tried to read the reports about how Private Johns led his fireteam after his corporal was 'hit' or how Sergeant Lantz failed to maneuver his squad behind the 'enemy' and was 'hit' himself, but she couldn't. The words and images went straight through her.

Without thinking, she rested her scroll on the table for a more relaxed view. She rested her head on one hand, staring down at it. Her second moved up to join the first. She placed them both over her eyes.

And, as silently as she could, she cried.

oooooo

At the end of inspections, Winter had learned two things: first, the Atlas military's basic training was surprisingly not horrible; second, it was a very good thing she'd chosen to run them, because most of… her soldiers…would never have been truly prepared for the upcoming fight without the unanticipated test.

Despite being well organized at the fundamental level, it had still forced them into a chaotic situation without preparation. This chaos tested their training and preparedness, and more than a few groups failed that test.

Team RWBY and their 'escorts' had reported a rapid shift in attitude over the last several days as it became obvious even to the lowest private that the inspections were necessary.

And now, once again, she stood in front of a large screen. This one displayed her, in her stark-white uniform, standing straight in front of the soldiers under her command. They waited, still and quiet, for her to speak.

"A week ago," she began, "your commanders told me that what you just completed was impossible. That a base-wide drill of this magnitude could not possibly be done in a week, or even three."

She looked around them all. "But you followed your orders, even as you questioned my leadership. You followed them, and you succeeded, despite what others thought was possible."

She glanced over at her sister and her team. "You proved to yourselves what a member of the Atlas Military is capable of," she paused, "Some of you struggled, yes, but mistakes exist to teach us the right way to act. The more mistakes you make, the more lessons you've learned, and the more things you knowto avoid doing in the future."

Idly, Winter recognized that it would have seemed infantilizing saying this to these troops a week ago. But she'd gained a new perspective in that time. She'd realized that, while they had struggled and they had failed, the collaborative demands they fought under dwarfed those that had taken a month of humiliating lessons from her sister's team to teach her.

 _When_ they had failed it was only where _she_ had failed. But many had not, and those possessed a skill that Winter had utterly failed to learn in her own training. She had to respect that.

"Your orders now are to address those mistakes, and prepare for our inevitable deployment. I will expect each of you to know exactly where to go with exactly what you need when I sound that siren," she said. "So, for the next week, in-between your drills, you will be preparing and practicing everything you need to for that deployment. By the end of this week, when I sound this signal," she held up one finger and Private Samuels set off a loud bell, "you will all be in your formation with your appropriate gear in no more than twenty minutes. In two weeks, that number will have dropped to fifteen."

She looked out at her un-asked for battalion, looking for confusion or resentment. But they hid their feelings, whatever they were, well enough.

Finally, satisfied by their discipline, she concluded, "That is all. Let's get to work."


	9. Epilogue

"The majors really weren't happy about you leading the offensive, ma'am," Lt. Lang said conversationally. The sound of air rushing past the shuttle made him speak well above normal volume.

"I don't really care what they were or were not happy about, Lieutenant," Colonel Schnee replied lightly as they headed toward the battlefield. "I fully intend to relinquish this command at the earliest opportunity."

"Does that mean we finally get to stop being office drones?" Samuels asked. "Because frankly, I joined the SpecFor to kill Grimm, not write paperwork." There were nods from the rest of the platoon.

"I _sincerely_ hope so, Private," Colonel Schnee said with a smirk. More than anything, the smirk told Lt. Lang just how happy she'd be to get back to killing Grimm.

Unseen but all around them, the rest of the battalion were en route to their own objectives, where they'd wait for the signal they couldn't miss. Team RWBY was very good at those.

" _Colonel Schnee, we are five minutes out,"_ the pilot said over the intercom.

"Understood," Colonel Schnee replied. "Lieutenant."

"Everyone check your Dust magazines," Lt. Lang said immediately. "Sixth time is better than fifth."

A murmur of laughter passed through the platoon as each soldier unbuckled, counted, and re-buckled their magazines full of Dust-powered rounds.

Ten seconds turned into twenty, a minute into two, until finally it was time. Ahead of him, Colonel Schnee hit the bay door release and the thick, long metal shell slid open, allowing a deafening whirlwind into the bay.

This was their moment of truth. The pilot hadn't descended at all; they were still nearly twenty thousand feet in the air and hovering there. Colonel Schnee looked him in the eye. For a moment, he saw her own doubts, but this was the most expedient way to gain the advantage…

" _PLATOON, MOVE UP!_ " he shouted with the skill of a long-serving sergeant.

Almost as a single unit, the twenty three other soldiers took their places. The bay door allowed six to stand abreast comfortably. Eight if they didn't mind rubbing elbows.

Lt. Lang took his position in the front line. They were about to trust Colonel Schnee with their lives, and she was about trust them to lead the offensive. Lt. Lang couldn't decide which was the harder decision.

He took a deep breath, then looked to Colonel Schnee beside him and said, "See you at the bottom, ma'am!"

Then he jumped out of the shuttle, followed quickly by the rest of his line.

As he fell, he remembered his last conversation with Team RWBY by their running shuttle, just before the four of them had left for their mission.

 _Ruby! You said I was the second to last to receive a gift!_

Lt. William Lang spread himself out, his rifle strapped to his back. His descent slowed and he shifted until the rest of his line were more or less on the same level.

 _What did you get Major Schnee?_

Beside him, the second line fell to roughly the same altitude, spread out across as small a radius as possible. The ground drew closer and closer, until finally the third line arrived.

 _Haven't you figured that out yet, Lieutenant?_

The ground was close enough now that Lt. Lang could see Grimm moving rapidly toward the sound of gunfire deep behind the lines. Team RWBY had successfully given the signal.

 _No!_

Two dozen white lines blew past the Winter Contingent. Then in front of them, two dozen white glyphs appeared in front of each falling soldier. Each of them glanced off theirs, slowed significantly but nowhere near enough.

Then two dozen more passed in front of them, cast by their commanding officer, replicating a trick pioneered by her younger sister and her damn near suicidal teammates.

Glyph by glyph, the Winter Contingent slowed. The Grimm below them hadn't noticed them, But Lt. Lang was starting to believe they'd make it down safely. Then it would be his job to lead the platoon in securing the 'LZ' until Colonel Schnee arrived.

She was trusting them with that. She was trusting them to be the first, to do for her was she was trained specifically to do for herself.

 _We got her_ you _! Wasn't that obvious?_

They hadn't been kidding, he thought idly, just before his boots crashed onto the head of a Grimm.


End file.
